Interim President Alan Marble met informally with Tim Wolfe president of the University of Missouri System Wednesday.

According to Marble, Wolfe wants to move forward with the dental school partnership between Missouri Southern and University of Missouri Kansas City.

“Those were his words ‘Let’s push this ahead,” Marble said.

The partnership has been in process since 2010, according to Tia Strait, dean of health sciences at Missouri Southern.

“At that time it was their new dean, Dr. Marsha Pyle, that had a meeting where it was discussed looking at off-site programming areas because they are pretty landlocked where they are on Medical Hill in Kansas City,” she said.

Strait serves on the community advisory board with UMKC.  Strait explained that Southern was considered because they already have success with distance learning in Rolla and Sikeston with their dental hygiene program.

Strait said that every fall the partnership between the two universities moves a little further along.

In the fall of 2011, Pyle visited Southern and met with all the vice presidents and the president. Also during that time, according to Strait, Pyle met with the Greater Joplin Dental Association to gain their support as well as the support of the Missouri Dental Association.

“Arkansas and Kansas both have contracts with UMKC to provide dentists for their states because neither of them have a dental school,” Strait said. “So look at the position where Southern sits, 30 minutes from each of those borders. “

Last fall a consulting team from UMKC consisting of three of their business professors visited Southern to assess the feasability of putting a dental school on campus.

Strait said she had a conversation with Pyle over the summer in which Pyle explained that the proposal for the dental school was in the Chancellor’s Office at UMKC.

“This isn’t something we decided yesterday. We have been working on this for three years,” Strait said. “Putting any sort of health profession program in place takes time and its expensive.”

Marble said there is discussion of what the partnership would look like however, Strait said that options include interactive television classes and web-based classes.

“They would have to have faculty here because there is a clinical component as well,” Strait said. “They would have to see patients to do restorative and surgical procedures as part of their training here on our campus.”

Students completing the program would receive a Doctorate of Dental Surgery.