Proposed FAU dental school gets mired in presidential search controversy

Scott Travis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·11 min read

A planned dental school that Florida Atlantic University successfully fast-tracked through the state now faces delays, faculty criticism and questions about whether its ultimate fate could be tied to a prolonged search for a new president.

Right now, FAU plans to open a new College of Dentistry in 2027, Dr. Joel Berg, a consultant working with the university to develop the school, told a faculty committee at a recent meeting.

That’s a year later than the university said in August, and two years later than when it first proposed the dental school in 2022.

“2027 is the plan, and I’m confident we will meet that target,” Berg told the Steering Committee of the university’s Faculty Senate at the Oct. 26 meeting.

Faculty members voiced skepticism, saying they have many questions about the timeline, the financing, the instability of university leadership and the role of a politically connected donor and member of the FAU Board of Trustees.

The FAU college would be the state’s second public dental school, after the University of Florida.

The project, publicly announced for the first time in the summer of 2022, sailed through the State University System’s Board of Governors, as well the state Legislature, which approved with little discussion $30 million toward construction of a building and $10 million for operating costs.

It was a stark contrast to the battle the last two state universities faced when they tried to open a dental school.

The University of Central Florida in Orlando and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee submitted proposals in 2011, but the Board of Governors rejected the plans, saying there was a lack of need.

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A health department study at the time found Florida had no shortage of dentists, except in rural areas where it was hard to attract health professionals.

The market is likely similar today, except there are fewer hurdles to become a dentist in Florida, as the state now honors licenses granted in other states, said Dr. Beatriz Terry, president of the Florida Dental Association. A private dental school, LECOM School of Dental Medicine in Bradenton, has also opened since UCF and FAMU were rejected.

“Florida is home to a robust dental workforce, and hundreds of dentists are graduating from Florida dental schools each year,” Terry told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

She wouldn’t comment on whether the Florida Dental Association has concerns about the new FAU dental school, saying officials from her group haven’t met with the university to review the plans.

But Terry said the biggest problem facing the industry is not a lack of places to get a dental education but the average student loan debt of $300,000 dentists are accumulating after they graduate.

“That is driving them to practice in areas where they can earn enough to cover that debt, leading to gaps in rural and underserved areas of Florida,” she said.

FAU touts its planned dental school as a way to help the state supply more dentists in rural and underserved areas. However, FAU is located in a region that has no shortage of dentists, according to the state Health Department statistics FAU included in its legislative proposal.

South Florida also has one dental school already, at the private Nova Southeastern University in Davie.

“It is a miscalculation to suggest there isn’t, or will not be, a shortage of qualified dentists,” FAU spokeswoman Lisa Metcalf told the Sun Sentinel. “After all, there is only one public dental college in the entire state. To compare FAU’s initiative with a private institution is not an apples-to-apples comparison.”

FAU officials say tuition will be lower than what’s charged by the private universities.

Still, some faculty question whether the dental school is being created out of need or out of interest from a donor and member of the Board of Trustees. They remain unconvinced the financing and interest will be sustained as the university continues to be mired in uncertainty and politics.

Bill Trapani, an FAU professor of communications and member of the Faculty Senate, told the Sun Sentinel he’s been involved in developing other new degree programs, and this one has been rushed.

“We did something that normally takes 36 months in six months,” he said. “Normally it’s a faculty-led process where a faculty group will begin working to develop a proposal that is based on student interest and demand.”

A major component of the initial proposal was a $30 million pledge from Barbara Feingold, a politically connected FAU trustee and the wife of the late Dr. Jeffrey Feingold, a dentist and entrepreneur who built a large chain of dental clinics. The Feingolds traveled to Israel with Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2019, and the governor spoke at Dr. Feingold’s funeral in 2021.

Dr. Feingold had unsuccessfully tried to persuade FAU officials to create a dental school about 10 years ago when he was on the Board of Trustees. Former Provost Gary Perry and former Interim President Dennis Crudele said they both told Dr. Feingold a dental school wasn’t a priority at the time.

FAU had just opened a new medical school and was still working on getting it fully accredited, they said. And the state Board of Governors had recently turned down similar proposals from UCF and FAMU.

“From a political standpoint, it wasn’t something the Board of Governors would likely approve, and we had a fairly young medical school,” said Crudele, who is now retired.

Perry, who still works at FAU as a professor of neuroscience, said he also checked with the American Dental Association to see if there was a dentist shortage that needed to be addressed with the new school.

“They didn’t see at that time for a need,” he said. “That was 10 years ago, so probably the population has increased since then.”

But Barbara Feingold found more success. With her $30 million pledge, the school would be named “The Dr. Jeffrey P. Feingold School of Dentistry,” according to a conceptual artistic image prepared for the university.

Feingold spoke about her late husband’s desire for a dental school at a November 2022 meeting of the Board of Trustees, after the Board of Governors had given preliminary approval.

“In his term that didn’t quite happen, but the dream was there and honestly, I just realized that this was our time,” Feingold told the trustees. “We got lucky. It makes sense with only one public university college of dentistry in the third fastest-growing state.”

But as FAU’s search for a new president became embroiled in controversy, Feingold suggested her gift isn’t a guarantee.

“As far as a commitment that I made, yes I made that. It could happen,” she said at an Aug. 15 Board of Trustees meeting. “Nothing has been signed.”

Her comment came at a meeting where she had several heated exchanges with Brad Levine, chairman of the Board of Trustees, over the university’s handling of the presidential search.

A search committee appointed by Levine selected three finalists on July 5, none of whom Feingold said she supported.

Feingold is an ally of State Rep. Randy Fine, who was initially supported for the top FAU job by DeSantis, but not the search committee.

Fine and DeSantis are now in a rift over DeSantis’ handling of antisemitism and Fine flipping his presidential endorsement from DeSantis to former President Trump. Fine told the Sun Sentinel that DeSantis’ office had promised him he was a shoo-in for the job.

The FAU search has been on hold since July 7, when the State University System’s Board of Governors said there were anomalies reported in the search process and launched an investigation that’s still ongoing.

Attorney General Ashley Moody gave an opinion this past week that a straw poll used to narrow candidates violated the state’s Sunshine Law, which legal experts say could force the university to start the search process over again. Fine told the Sun Sentinel he probably won’t apply again.

Fine said he played a role in helping FAU secure funding for a new dental school. He chairs the state House Health & Human Services Committee and sits on the Appropriations and Education and Employment committees.

“I certainly did advocate for it, as did a lot of other people,” he said. “It was the right thing to do. There’s only one public dental school in the state of Florida.”

As for previous studies showing a lack of need for one, Fine said, “This is a very different state a decade later. I don’t think there’s a single area of health care where we have enough people.”

He said there was no link between the dental school’s funding and the FAU job, as some critics have speculated.

With Fine likely out as FAU’s next president, the status of Feingold’s gift remains in limbo. She couldn’t be reached by the Sun Sentinel, despite multiple attempts.

The new building is expected to cost $84 million, and operating costs are expected to be about $38 million a year, according to FAU legislative budget requests. So far, the state Legislature has only committed $40 million. FAU plans to request more funds over the next few years from the state and other sources.

“State funding was not contingent upon a gift from Trustee Feingold, but the financial plan we developed for our Legislative Budget Request did include an expected $30 million in philanthropy,” FAU spokesman Joshua Glanzer said in an email to the Sun Sentinel.

Rebecca Napier, FAU’s chief financial officer, told the faculty committee the university has developed a viable plan, no matter what happens with the gift.

“I think from the perspective of the building and the operational costs, what we have identified is more than sufficient to be able to stand up a College of Dentistry and run its operations,” she said. “And this is completely agnostic of any sort of external funding.”

Regardless of the status of the donation, some faculty say the stalled search has created a lot of uncertainty. With FAU lacking a permanent president, the university has waited to permanently fill other key positions that could affect the dental school, they said, including a provost, a dean for the College of Medicine and vice presidents to oversee research and fundraising.

They said a proposed plan to start hiring dental school faculty over the next two years seems premature.

“Construction takes a really, really long time in the state of Florida,” Kim Dunn, an accounting professor and Faculty Senate president, said at the Oct. 26 meeting. “We’re talking about hiring people two years from now and one year from now. Where are they going to sit?”

Faculty also questioned whether one of the proposed dental school’s missions, to supply more dentists for minority and underserved areas, aligns with new state laws that restrict the use of state resources for diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Berg, a professor at the University of Washington School of Dentistry, said he was unfamiliar with the new state law, but that the Commission on Dental Accreditation, the only accrediting body for dental schools, has diversity requirements “not only for the educational program but also the composition of the faculty and staff.”

Interim Provost Russ Ivy told the committee, “Obviously we have to follow the law,” but the new law has exceptions for programs where accrediting bodies have diversity, equity and inclusion requirements.

Trapani said at the meeting he still had many unanswered questions.

“We need to pause further expenditures or development of this proposal until we have more clarity and confidence,” he said at the meeting.

The committee agreed to study Trapani’s concerns more but stopped short of approving a motion asking that the project be put on hold. The Faculty Senate had issued support for the dental school project in September 2022, at the request of FAU administration.

Despite faculty concerns, FAU officials say they are committed to the project.

“The university has taken a number of steps to establish the College of Dentistry and is working with state and community partners to address critical workforce shortages of dentists in rural and underserved areas throughout Florida,” Glanzer said.

Using allocations from the state Legislature, FAU is actively recruiting four key leadership positions, including an acting dean, he said. The university will seek preliminary approval from the Commission on Dental Accreditation by February 2025.

“No project is complete until fully funded, and funding can come from multiple sources,” Glanzer said.