By Robert Dilday
Bluefield College has ended efforts to develop what would have been the only dental school in the nation operated by a school with Baptist ties.
Bluefield’s trustees shut down the dental school project, launched in 2012 to provide oral care to underserved Appalachian communities, on Oct. 7 after a request for $15.7 million from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission was declined.
The project was a collaboration between the 850-student school affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia and surrounding Tazewell County.
“Given the obstacles we have faced in obtaining the financial commitment needed for the project’s success, we determined it was best for Bluefield College to cease its activities to create a dental school in order to pursue other strategic initiatives,” trustee chair David Bailey said in a press release. “We wish Tazewell County well as it explores other options to bring a dental school to this region.”
Tazewell had pledged to commit $13.5 million over seven years for the dental school and an additional $8.3 million had been secured in gifts and pledges by both Bluefield the county. But the lack of funding from the Tobacco Commission, created in 1999 to use proceeds from a national tobacco settlement to promote economic growth in tobacco-dependent communities, made the project unfeasible.
The commission had considered the grant request last May but postponed a decision until September, prompting Bluefield to suspend the project. The Oct. 7 trustee decision brings the proposed dental school to an end.
“We believed we had a strong application with ample justification to garner the commission’s support,” said Bluefield president David Olive in the press release. “While we were aware of other competing projects, we felt the dental school project would stand out because it would have addressed critical health care needs in Southside and Southwest Virginia, provided education for the next generation of dentists, and contributed to the economic development of our region.”
A growing shortage of dentists in Southwest Virginia and the central Appalachian region is leaving many communities without easy access to dental care, a plight Bluefield hoped to address. Only two universities in the region currently operate dental schools — West Virginia University and the University of Tennessee.
“We certainly grieve this vision for a dental school in central Appalachia is coming to a standstill at this point in time,” said Olive. “Our hope is that the vision can once again come to life with the financial support needed to make it a reality at some point in the future.”