Delta Dental gives $2M to Marquette University

Delta Dental of Wisconsin has donated $2 million to the Marquette University School of Dentistry's Building for the Future campaign for a planned expansion to the school.

A portion of the gift, $500,000, is a challenge grant to help leverage additional support.

Delta Dental's donation is the first of an $8 million capital campaign that will match $8 million already committed from the state of Wisconsin in its 2011-2013 biennial budget. The university is currently in the design phase of this project and is working to raise the remaining nonstate matching funds.

The $16 million, 40,000-sq-ft expansion will create additional clinical, lab, and classroom space at the School of Dentistry's Wisconsin Avenue facility in Milwaukee.

When the expansion is complete, the school will add enough clinical, lab, and classroom space to accommodate classes of 100 students each year, up 20 from the current class size, for an annual enrollment of 400 students.

More than 80% of Marquette's dental graduates practice in the state, with alumni practicing in 69 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, the school noted.

The dental school expansion will also include space for faculty and student translational and clinical research. Marquette dental faculty focus on research, including health disparities among underserved populations in Wisconsin and around the world; orthodontics; clinical outcomes for patients; and radiology technology.