Dear ASDA member/visitor,

I would like to welcome you to the redesigned ASDA national website! The site you are now experiencing was designed based on extensive member feedback. It is our vision that it will become the ultimate portal for information for dental students. I hope you are finding the site user-friendly and I believe that as it develops, this site will profoundly change the way members relate to the organization and to each other.

Our organization was born in the early 1970’s from a cadre of student leaders who wished to create a unified voice for dental students across the country. The early history of ASDA is rooted in advocacy as our organization took a leading role in issues such as staffing Indian Health Service programs, recruiting minority students and matters related to public health. Since then, ASDA has maintained this legacy and articulated a mission to advance the rights, interests, and welfare of students pursuing careers in dentistry. We are a unified voice of approximately 87% of dental students with a membership of just under 17,000.

To facilitate enhanced communication to our members, in the fall of 2007 our new website will launch chapter development areas and pages for each of our 11 districts. We will also be adding discussion boards, blogs and wikis to strengthen collaboration among members and chapters nationwide. These services are only a skeleton, however. In order for the website to become a living representation of ASDA, our members must fill the framework created with content and offer feedback. I encourage you to add something from your chapter or from your personal experience to our site.

I believe that we are in a historic period in oral healthcare delivery in the United States. Several issues confront our profession today with greater magnitude than they have before. Challenges such as access to care, ethics and dental licensure are at the forefront of public debate. I would like to implore dental students to become deeply involved with these concerns and to remember that society has awarded us a privilege in being able to serve as health care providers. In turn, we must continue to advocate for oral health and represent the highest ideals of service to our community.

I am greatly humbled by the chance to serve as President of an organization that is so dear to me. ASDA has given me so much as a member and a leader. I want every member to understand the power that involvement with ASDA and organized dentistry has to enhance their lives. We have a talented group of national leaders assembled this year and I am proud to be associated with them. We will do our best to safeguard and execute the mission of our great organization and we will continue to be held accountable to our members who have given us the chance to represent them. I look forward to a memorable year for ASDA and strengthening our already formidable organization.

Thank you,

Wayne Stephens
Columbia ‘09
President, American Student Dental Association