Campus Involvement

Dental School and Allied Dental Program Involvement

How to Register Your Campus to Participate

To participate in the ADEA dental education wide climate assessment, each U.S. and Canadian dental school dean and allied dental program director must give approval and register their campus to participate.

As part of registration, each dean and allied dental program director will be asked to identify up to two campus liaisons who will assist ADEA and Nonprofit HR with outreach and survey implementation on their campuses.

Attention Deans and Allied Program Directors:

Registration information has been uploaded to a folder, “Climate Study,” in the Deans and Allied Program Director communities on ADEA Connect or email climatestudy@adea.org and a direct link will be provided

Why Participate

The inaugural climate assessment study will provide evidence-based environmental data and record the perceptions of students, faculty and staff in academic dentistry.

To increase and improve diversity within the oral health professions and the dental education pathway, dental education must ensure a humanistic climate and advance programming and policies that promote equity, inclusion and belongingness for all faculty, students, staff, residents and fellows. Therefore, the climate study is a crucial step in assisting all campuses with measuring perceptions regarding the campus climate as one supportive of inclusion, equality and equitable outcomes for all stakeholders.

For the first time in our history, the ADEA climate study will allow U.S. and Canadian dental schools and allied dental programs to benchmark across peer institutions and programs to better understand the landscape in which we educate, learn, teach and treat patients. We realize that some dental schools and allied dental programs may have previously participated in climate studies at the campus level.

However, one of the ADEA climate assessment’s major benefits will be the availability of anonymous comparative aggregated data specific to dental schools and allied dental programs, which has been unavailable for schools and programs participating solely in university/campus assessments. Participating campuses will also receive an individualized confidential campus report, which will be customized with data tables, to assist in diversity and strategic planning at the school and program level.

Benefits of Participation

The ADEA Climate Study:

• Delivers for the first time the opportunity for dental school and allied dental program self-evaluation through anonymous, comparative and aggregated peer-to-peer data;
• Supports reporting on CODA humanistic environments, cultural competence and diversity standards;
• Delivers confidential and customized individual reports for dental schools and allied dental programs to assist with strategic planning and programmatic initiatives;
• Provides a synthesized analysis of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging perceptions for students, faculty, administrators and staff;
• Identifies perceived gaps and disparities in student, staff and faculty recruitment/retention programming;
• Uses evidence-based data to develop strategic initiatives at association and campus levels to foster improvement; and
• Provides baseline data collection for future surveys and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of strategic initiatives adopted for improvement.