Change Agent: Dr. Mike Alfano
A Silver Anniversary Tribute to Our Former Dean and His Senior Leadership Team
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Not long after Dr. Michael C. (Mike) Alfano became dean of NYU Dentistry in 1998, it became clear that he would be a change agent intent on transforming the College’s academic reputation and social fabric.
As dean, Mike was an extraordinary leader: Admissions became more selective and competitive; research became an institutional priority; new roles for dentists and new models for health care education were embraced; dental care for poor New Yorkers expanded; fundraising reached unprecedented levels, leading to the creation of major new facilities; global partnerships expanded, and the College of Dentistry emerged as an important center for health care research. His successes on so many fronts were aided significantly by his talent for entrepreneurship and collegiality and his openness to innovation, all of which fostered a remarkable esprit de corps at the College. As he was fond of saying, “This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile.”
Prior to becoming dean, Mike, a graduate of both Harvard and MIT, had distinguished himself in senior positions in both the corporate sector and academia. He was also a prolific author, the recipient of numerous research grants, a member of, or consultant to, various health-related organizations, including the NIH, and the holder or co-holder of seven patents.
It is not too much to say that Mike Alfano set NYU Dentistry on a path to become the dental institution with the greatest impact globally on the health of society. Boldly imagining the future, he challenged the profession through initiatives such as a consumer-oriented campaign to raise awareness about oral cancer and recognized and promoted a role for dentistry in terrorism preparedness. He believed that the path forward for dental care and for health care in general must lie in new synergies developed through interdisciplinary health research and education. This conviction met the moment when, in 2005, the opportunity arose for the then-Division of Nursing in NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education — now the Steinhardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Development — to become a new College of Nursing within the NYU College of Dentistry. This innovation by NYU was a giant step toward inter-professionalism in education and also placed NYU in an ideal position to research the many evolving links between oral health and general health.
For the next decade the NYU College of Nursing was a component unit within the College of Dentistry. This college-within-a-college approach was unique, with the nursing dean reporting to the dean of Dentistry and the two of them working together to promote a new level of interdisciplinary learning and scholarship.
In January 2015, the College of Nursing became a separate college housed within a purposely-built new home — 433 First Avenue — shared with Dentistry and Engineering.
Mike left NYU Dentistry in 2006 to become Executive Vice President of NYU, a position in which he oversaw the University’s budget and finance operations, the human relations division, and the real estate, planning, and construction operations. All of us whose lives he touched as dean of Dentistry missed him very much, but we were delighted that he had been elevated to the number three position of leadership at NYU, after the president and the provost.
Although Mike was the key architect in setting and achieving the College’s goals, many others played important roles during his tenure, including Dr. Richard (Rich) Vogel and Dr. Louis (Lou) Terracio, the executive vice dean and the associate dean for research at that time, respectively.
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By the time Mike recruited Rich to come to NYU, they had known each other for more than 30 years. Mike had the highest praise for Rich, saying of him, “I can state unequivocally that I have never seen an educator with higher standards, a greater understanding of the relationship between basic and clinical science, or more passion for excellence in the educational process.” He entrusted Rick with revitalizing all the College’s academic programs and the results were spectacular.
Rich worked closely with the faculty to formulate College-wide competencies for the predoctoral program and to establish a curriculum whose outcome should be, among other things, a critical-thinking, problem-solving clinician, who can communicate appropriately with other health care providers in providing comprehensive patient care. His goal was a curriculum that emphasizes questions as well as answers, humanity as well as technology, and wisdom as well as knowledge.
A highlight of Rich Vogel’s tenure at the College was his leadership of the 2003 American Dental Education Commission on Accreditation site visit. In contrast to earlier site visits, which required dental schools to demonstrate compliance with a list of standards designated by the commission, the new accreditation process was based on the dental school setting its own goals and objectives, measuring itself against those goals and objectives, and taking necessary measures to make certain that those goals and objectives were met. The result was an overwhelming success, with no recommendations for any of the academic programs.
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The other key member of Mike’s team, Dr. Lou Terracio, was drawn to NYU Dentistry by the opportunity to be part of a transformation that Mike Alfano had initiated to enable the College — long known for producing excellent clinicians — to develop a stronger research environment capable of significantly advancing the knowledge base in oral health. Energized by the opportunity to make research an institutional priority, Lou accepted the challenge and hit the ground running.
Coming into an environment in which faculty felt that research was an afterthought that had to be done to meet accreditation standards, Lou worked hard to eliminate this approach in favor of moving the research faculty toward a shared focus on specific areas of research. In the process, he was able to galvanize the research community into a cooperative group willing to support each other and the College’s initiatives. Lou’s influence is apparent in a change in orientation among many researchers at the College from thinking about fundamental mechanisms to thinking about things that might be useful in the clinical setting five to 10 years in the future. This orientation is on the ascendancy today, thanks to the work of major scientists from around the world, many of whom Lou helped to recruit.
NYU Dentistry owes a huge debt of gratitude to Mike Alfano, Rich Vogel, and Lou Terracio for the roles they played in transforming NYU Dentistry into an institution that is currently recognized as one of our nation’s top dental schools.