Stamm Named Interim Dean

Dr. John Stamm, who led the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry for 15 years, will become the School’s interim dean on May 25, 2010, University officials recently announced.

Dean John N. Williams is leaving his UNC-Chapel Hill position to become dean of the Indiana University School of Dentistry in June. Dr. Barbara Rimer, dean of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been leading a recruitment effort involving a search committee and a national search firm since September 2009.

Provost Bruce Carney updated the School’s faculty, staff and students and members of the search committee on the search process on April 28. He then announced Stamm’s new role.

“As you all know, he has been a distinguished leader in the profession and in the University, and Chancellor Thorp and I are extremely grateful that he is ready to step in and once again lead the School. He has our complete confidence.”

During Stamm’s tenure as dean, from 1989 to 2004, the School planned and constructed a 92,500-square-foot clinical teaching facility (Tarrson Hall) and a patient simulation laboratory. Both of these facilities incorporated state-of-the-art instructional technology; under Stamm’s leadership, the School invested heavily in an IT infrastructure that enabled a full-service electronic curriculum, an electronic patient record system and a centrally supported digital imaging system.

Stamm also established the School’s first Ph.D. programs and led the School through two accreditation processes and two capital campaigns.