CU School of Dentistry’s Lazzara Center
for Oral-Facial Health opens
By Tonya Ewers
Office of Public Relations
Sept. 2005
The University of Colorado School of Dentistry officially opens its new Lazzara Center for Oral-Facial Health on Friday, Sept. 16, at the University of Colorado Denver’s Fitzsimons campus.
The 95,000-square-foot, three-story building is twice the size of the former CU School of Dentistry on UCD’s Ninth Avenue campus in Denver, and is exceptionally designed as a clinical facility with the technology to support both patient care and the educational mission of the only dentistry school in Colorado. The school is the first of the UCD schools to relocate to the Fitzsimons campus. The graduate school and CU schools of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy will follow suit over the next three to four years.
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University of Colorado School of Dentistry Dean Denise Kassebaum, DDS, MS |
The new center broke ground on the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora on March 18, 2004, funded in part by a $92.7 million partnership – to be paid in installments over 30 years – with the Orthodontic Education Co., headed by Gaspar Lazzara, DDS, managing partner. Lazzara is founder of the Orthodontic Centers of America, a $1.5 billion international healthcare company that manages 750 orthodontic offices worldwide.
“ Dr. Lazzara’s vision and generosity have helped create the largest public-private entrepreneurial venture in the history of dental education,” said Dr. James Shore, UCD chancellor.
“ The entrepreneurial thinking behind this project is commendable,” said CU President Hank Brown. “Together, the donor and CU have built a new school that will address the shortages in orthodontists, provide community service to low-income young adults in the Rocky Mountain region and utilize some of the most advanced equipment for dental care – all without spending any taxpayer dollars.”
The public/private business partnership enabled the CU School of Dentistry to establish a training program to address the anticipated national and local shortage of trained orthodontists, as well as provide orthodontic care for many underprivileged children in Colorado. The school already provides $3.1 million annually in care to underserved Coloradans through a variety of programs that reach out to ethnic minority and low-income populations. The new orthodontic program will further those efforts.
The orthodontic program will also train 16 students each year, and as part of the business partnership, the education of 12 students will be entirely funded by OEC, with a post-graduate commitment to practice orthodontics at OEC sites across the nation. The other four students will be funded through the School of Dentistry and will not be affiliated with OEC.
“ To say we are all very excited about the new comprehensive oral health center is an understatement,” said Denise Kassebaum, DDS, interim dean of the school. “With this new center, the CU School of Dentistry can increase access to education, scientific discoveries and quality patient care to better serve Colorado and the region.”
The new center has the clinical capacity to support more than 40,000 patient visits per year in addition to the space to accommodate 200 dental students, 40 international students, 60 dental hygiene students, 32 orthodontic post-doctoral students, and six general practice residents. In addition to patient care clinics, classrooms, laboratories and offices, the building houses a lecture hall, seminar rooms, conference room space, building support space and additional shelled space for later expansion.
For more information about the Lazzara Center for Oral-Facial Health and the CU School of Dentistry, visit www.uchsc.edu/sod/.
