Murrah named Chair of the Council of Faculties of the American Dental Education Association
Dr. Valerie Murrah, professor and chair of the Department of Diagnostic Sciences and General Dentistry, recently ascended to the position of chair of the Council of Faculties of the American Dental Education Association(ADEA).
ADEA’s mission is to lead individuals and institutions of the dental education community to address contemporary issues influencing education, research, and the delivery of oral health care for the health of the public. The organization encourages dental institutions to provide an optimal learning environment for their dental students and to collaborate with other health care organizations and governing bodies to create a forward-looking approach to the issues of modern oral health care.
As chair of the Council of Faculties, Murrah will facilitate decision making on a variety of resolutions that will be voted on in the House of Delegates. She will also work to establish consensus concerning educational activities to be proposed and initiated by the council, and will work with other ADEA councils on programming for both the October mid-year meeting of ADEA and the annual meeting in the Spring. As chair, Murrah will represent the interests of the council, and dental school faculty members in general, at the annual meeting of the officers of all ADEA councils at the ADEA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Her term as a member of the administrative board of the Council of Faculties is four years, culminating in the final year as chair.
“Being elected chair of the Council of Faculties is an incredible honor,” said Murrah. “I’ve been a part of ADEA for many years and am passionate about its mission. I’m looking forward to serving the organization in this new capacity.”
Prior to becoming chair, Murrah served on the Administrative Board of the Council of Faculties for three years. During that time, she and the rest of the council worked to achieve additions to the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) guidelines. These additions included dental students being competent in recognizing soft tissue and osseous pathology and having competency in oral head and neck examination and oral cancer detection. Murrah remains involved in MedEdPORTAL, a unique, online method to publish teaching technologies that can be utilized by dental instructors all over the world.
Murrah previously served ADEA as chair of the Women’s Affairs Advisory Committee, chair of the Section on Pathology, a member of the Council of Sections, and an at-large member of the Council of Hospitals and Advanced Education Programs. She currently also serves as women’s liaison officer for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry and as a mentor of one of three fellows just recently selected to participate in the Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program. She has also just been appointed by the ADEA president to an ad hoc committee that will address the important issue of student indebtedness, nationwide.
The Council of Faculties is one of seven councils of ADEA. Each dental school in the U.S. elects one faculty member to the ADEA Council of Faculties.
