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S.C.O.P.E is a student-run community service organization at the
Pacific School of Dentistry. The SCOPE program's mission is to
involve SCOPE officers as role models to engage fellow students,
faculty and alumni in oral health projects directed toward community
needs. SCOPE received national recognition when selected by ADEA
for the 2002 Student Excellence in Education and Service Award.
SCOPE officers lead students to take active roles in sponsoring
or participating in activities such as screenings, presentations
and educational sessions for children, families, senior citizens
and other underserved members of the Bay Area community. SCOPE
helps foster a sense of community health awareness and civic pride
in Pacific dental students; a characteristic that will follow them
through graduation into private practice. Throughout the year,
students, faculty, and staff volunteer their time at numerous health
fairs, senior centers, elementary and non-profit agencies and sponsor
the annual Senior Smile Day. Since 2001, the graduating class has
had 100% participation of its members in a community event while
at Pacific School of Dentistry.
Created in 1994 by a group of Pacific dental students and the
Director of Community Services, the SCOPE Program, the primary
goals are to establish a peer (student) mentoring system which
focused on a variety of annual service projects that would reach
a wide range of economically or socially disadvantaged groups in
the Bay Area. The main objectives of SCOPE include:
- To establish a peer mentoring system at the dental school for
students to lead, prepare and continue outreach projects year-after-year,
including after graduation.
- To promote involvement of students, residents, dental school
faculty, alumni and community dentists in oral health community
service projects.
- To provide disease prevention, oral health education, screening
and preventive services to underserved members of the San Francisco
Bay area community.
One of the outstanding aspects of the SCOPE Program model is its
longevity and the student-to-student promotion of volunteering
in the community. None of the community health projects are academic
requirements. The SCOPE Program is entrepreneurial in nature. For
example, in 2001 the SCOPE President challenged all 140 members
of the Class of 2001 to achieve 100% involvement in a community
service projects. For the first time in the one hundred-year history
of the dental school, a graduating class accomplished the “100%
volunteer participation” in community oral health projects
and that continues today.
The SCOPE Program model, now celebrating over a decade of service,
is successful and unique in its student-initiated and student-operated
community service design
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