Canant made the new program official in 1940 and established an administration committee to put it into effect. Once a curriculum and plan of study was draw up--one sheet of paper with four typewritten lines on it--the new school had to gain recognition by the American Dental Association and the Association of American Dental Schools. Arthur M. Maloney D.M.D. '23, associate professor of Clinical Dentistry, went to New York to present the School's application.
But the friends of the then Dean, Leroy M.S. Miner D.M.D. '40, who saw him going out with the old School, rallied to save him. "You're at the wrong meeting," the chairman told Maloney. "You should be at the Association of Medical Schools meeting." Maloney discovered that a special session was scheduled specifically to turn down Harvard, and he withdrew the application.
Then came Pearl Harbor and a military speed up as the government took over the University. The Navy was willing and prepared to accept the point degree system but the Army absolutely refused, perhaps because the general in charge "hated everything about Harvard." The medical degree had to be dropped, and the five-year planned never revived.
In 1941, the School admitted nine men. Six were thrown out after six months, and the remaining three dropped by the year's end. NO first-year class was taken in 1942.
The old school was still functioning, however, matriculating its last classes still in course. These were gone by the Spring of 1945, and with them went 120 members of the faculty, who were simply thanked and released. This number included all the part-time instructors and thereby antagonized practicing dentists.
Five Carry On
The five men retained were Dr. A.M. Jazowski D.M.D. '29, assistant professor of Prosthetic Dentistry; Dr. Paul K. Losch, associate professor of Pediatric Dentistry; Maloney; Dr.G. Earl Thompson D.M.D. '29, associate Clinical Professor of Dentistry; and Weisberger. During 1945-46, these few kept up the clinical work so patients could continue their treatment and, more important, so that the School wouldn't close completely. Contact with future patients was maintained for the time when the new School would open. Meanwhile the building was being renovated, and the six-year plan was established.
The 1945 remodeling cost $175,000 for revamping the old building and establishing five new laboratories. The equipment installed in this new space has cost approximately $100,000. In 1948 an animal house costing $110,000 was constructed; three years later $120,000 went for an additional floor of labs over the animal house.
The six-year plan also cost 25 students a year.
Year Added
The new program is an expanded version of the five-year system, but it still drew the challenge of practicing dentists. Instead of giving three and a half years to medicine and one and a half to dentistry, all dental students were to take their first two years of basic study at the Medical school and then switch over to the school of Dental Medicine's own building for two years of clinical dentistry. The student would receive his D.M.D. degree upon the completion of this four-year course. He then had the option of returning to the Medical School for his final two years towards an M.D.
Observers couldn't rationalize the middle two years as being adequate for the making of a practicing dentist. Furthermore, limited Medical