Accreditation Overview and Site Visit (October 25-27, 2022)

Accreditation is a non-governmental, voluntary peer review process by which educational institutions or programs may be granted public recognition for compliance with accepted standards of quality and performance. Specialized accrediting agencies exist to assess and verify the quality of educational programs in particular professions or occupations to ensure that individuals will be qualified to enter those disciplines upon graduation. 

The dental programs of the Dugoni School that will be reviewed in October 2022 are: predoctoral (DDS and IDS), dental hygiene, and residency programs in Advanced Education in General Dentistry, orthodontics, and endodontology.  

The Commission on Dental Accreditation

The Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) is the specialized agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit programs that provide basic preparation for licensure or certification in dentistry and related disciplines.

Accreditation Final Site Visit Schedules

The site visit schedule for each program can be accessed by clicking the links. All schedules are in PDF format.

Dental Hygiene
Predoc
Ortho
Endo
AEGD

Third-Party Comments

The Commission on Dental Accreditation requires that dental programs scheduled for review solicit third-party comments from communities of interest and the public at least 90 days prior to a scheduled site visit. Comments may be signed or unsigned, must pertain only to the standards for the particular program or policies and procedures used in the Commission’s accreditation process, and must be received in the CODA office 60 days prior to the formal visit. Signatures will be removed from comments prior to forwarding to the school. A copy of the appropriate accreditation standards and/or the commission’s policy on third-party comments may be obtained by contacting the Commission at 312.440.4653 or by email. The scheduled visit takes place October 25-27, 2022.

The Accreditation Planning Process

An Accreditation Oversight Committee (AOC) was created by the Dean in 2017 to oversee preparations for the 2022 site visit. The AOC is chaired by Dr. Cindy Lyon, Associate Dean of Oral Health Education, and consists of representatives of all programs to be site visited in 2022: Dr. Daniel Bender (predoctoral), Dr. Craig Dunlap (endodontology), Professor Lory Laughter (DH), Dr. Heesoo Oh (orthodontics), and Dr. Allen Wong (AEGD).

Each program is expected to develop a comprehensive self-study report that documents how and to what extent the program is in compliance with current accreditation standards. For the dental hygiene and residency programs, there is normally a single committee that produces the self-study report. In the case of the predoctoral program, there are nine self-study teams that organize ad-hoc committee reports into a single self-study used in the accreditation process. Self-study teams are divided by standard as follows: Institutional Effectiveness; Educational Program — Instruction, Curriculum Management, Critical Thinking and Self-Assessment; Educational Program — Biomedical Sciences; Educational Program — Behavioral Sciences; Educational Program — Clinical Sciences; Faculty and Staff; Educational Support Services; Patient Care Services; and Research. Leads of each investigative group comprise the Predoctoral Steering Committee (PSC), which has general responsibility for the production of the predoctoral self-study report.

Learn More

Please direct any questions about accreditation to Dr. Cindy Lyon, Associate Dean of Oral Health Education at clyon@pacific.edu or Dr. Daniel Bender, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, at dbender@pacific.edu.