It is very disappointing that all the issues at this school continue to be swept under the rug at the expense of the program. The changes the students and faculty have called for almost a year now continue to not be met. Instead of addressing the many injustices conducted by certain avenues of the administration, students have been personally threatened to keep quiet. I guess our first amendment rights were also signed away in the fine print. But many of us refuse to keep letting this program sink to even greater lows. We have taken great risks, jeopardizing our careers to fight for what is right and just for the entire student body and program as a whole. Unfortunately, we have no other option but to speak anonymously in the hopes that it will urge change to come about for the better, as things could not get any worse. So this leads me to ask, how many more times must this program be embarrassed? How much more do students have to do before we have your attention?
It has become so evident that this program, at least the way it is being run currently, is solely interested in making money (which goes somewhere, but not to making the program a better place: Faculty in clinic and lab are still understaffed so apparently teaching students is not a primary goal either). There is still a lack of patients for students in the clinic who require procedures to be performed to even graduate. This is becoming a real scare more and more every day. The dean directly promised last October to meet with all classes on a monthly basis to ensure that concerns are heard and addressed (yea right). That was the ONE and only meeting she had with us, with absolutely NO change for any of the issues we raised. The meeting was pure political smoke for her to show the higher ups she’s pretending on how to do her job. The same concerns continue to be deflected with B.S. political answers by the people that should be finding solutions rather than covering their tracks and deflecting responsibility.
Students are unhappy, faculty are unhappy, patients are unhappy after the sterilization scandal and the way it was handled. The list goes on and on. The school is in the gutter and it’s such a shame because it would be such an easy fix, change the administration and you can change the school. When bad things are said about the dental school now, it is almost impossible to defend Nova, only because there is nothing to defend. I am embarrassed to say my degree will come from this place. Maybe if we collectively refuse to treat patients the right people will listen. Maybe then changes will be made.
