John S. Findley, D.D.S., (right) presents Dental School Dean Kenneth L. Kalkwarf, D.D.S., M.S., with the ADA’s Distinguished Service Award. Photo by Lagniappe Studio, courtesy of ADA News. © 2009 American Dental Association
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Contact: Natalie Gutierrez, (210) 567-6814

SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 20, 2009) — Kenneth L. Kalkwarf, D.D.S., M.S., professor of periodontics and dean of the Dental School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, received the American Dental Association’s (ADA) highest honor — its Distinguished Service Award. ADA President John S. Findley, D.D.S., presented Dr. Kalkwarf with the award at the ADA’s 150th Annual Session and World Marketplace Exhibition in Honolulu, Hawaii, Oct. 2.

“Dr. Kalkwarf has touched so many groups in our profession and been a link between the educational community and the profession, and young dentists and more established members. It’s his collaborative spirit that really shines through,” Dr. Findley said. “In addition, while actively supporting the profession and the ADA on a national scale, he has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to working with the local dental community to further their efforts in promoting oral health for San Antonio and South Texas.”

Dr. Kalkwarf has served as dean of the Dental School in San Antonio since 1988. He is the fifth dean in the school’s history and its longest-serving dean to date.

“The duration of a deanship depends on the opportunity, the environment and the institution,” Dr. Kalkwarf said of his 21-year tenure. “I teach leadership classes and joke to students that you should choose your boss carefully. I’ve been privileged to work with three presidents here who are very supportive and allow the Dental School to do outstanding things. I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, become a dean at a young age and stick with it a long time.”

Dr. Kalkwarf’s major accomplishments
Under his leadership, the Dental School has excelled in its missions of education, research, clinical care and community service. A few of those accomplishments include:

• Establishing the Pediatric Dental Care Program in 2003 at the Ricardo Salinas Clinic on San Antonio’s West Side;
  
  
• Becoming the first dental school in the nation in 2000 to embark on a virtually complete electronic curriculum support system;
  
  
• Expanding the Regional Dental Campus in 1996 for dental residents, students and faculty to rotate to clinics and through the Mobile Dental Van program to provide primary dental care for patients, including colonia residents, throughout South Texas;
  
  
• Establishing the international Japanese Exchange Program in 1995;
  
  
• Implementing an Electronic Patient Record System in 1995 at the Health Science Center dental clinics. The system was later put into operation at Dental School clinic sites throughout South Texas, and in the Mobile Dental Van;
  
  
• Establishing the Dental Early Admissions Program in 1990, creating educational opportunities for students at 17 affiliated colleges and universities in Texas;
  
  
• Creating the D.D.S./Ph.D. clinician-scientist program in the 1990s designed to provide more dentists with advanced research training with the goal of increasing the number of Dental School faculty;
  
  
• Ranked the No. 1 Dental School in the nation by U.S. News & World Report;
  
  
• Providing dental care to more than 100,000 patients each year through the school’s Dental Clinics in San Antonio.

National leadership
Some of Dr. Kalkwarf’s ADA leadership roles have included chair of the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (1998-99); chair of the ADA Commission on Dental Accreditation (2003-04); member of the oversight committee that developed the report on the Future of Dentistry (2000-01); and member of the Task Force on the Commission on Dental Accreditation (2007-08). He was president of the American Dental Education Association in 2006-07.

He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology and has held membership and leadership positions in numerous national and international dental associations including the Hispanic Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Texas Dental Association and the American College of Dentists. He has been a reviewer for the Journal of Periodontology.

Dr. Kalkwarf was born in Lincoln, Neb., an only child of a family of farmers.

“My father brought me up to realize that people often disagree about things, but if you can bring them to the table, you can find more common ground than they thought existed,” Dr. Kalkwarf said. “In dentistry, the only way to get a resolution is to bring all sides together and to let everyone be heard. Let’s collaborate and figure out where we can find common ground. Sometimes it works great, other times, it isn’t totally effective, but at least we can feel comfortable that we tried.”

Dr. Kalkwarf earned his dental degree in 1970 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and completed a general practice residency program at Marquette University and the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Milwaukee in 1971. In 1973 he returned to the University of Nebraska to receive a certificate in periodontology and a master’s degree in oral biology. He and his wife, Sharon, have two sons, Kevin, 25, and Kyle, 30, both Iraq War veterans and graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Kyle is now a third-year medical student at the UT Health Science Center.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the leading research institutions in Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $668 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio's economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $36 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 26,400 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and other health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit .www.uthscsa.edu.