New Year - New Beginnings

In recent months, the LSUHSC School of Dentistry campus began to undergo some of the most significant changes since the school was built in the late 1960s. Nearly $75 million worth of construction is projected to be completed within two years:  $8.2 million to renovate the student preclinical laboratories, up to $62 million for the new Advanced Clinical Care and Research Building, and the remainder to fund renovation of patient reception areas in the E.E. Jeansonne Clinic Building. Another new building, the Interprofessional Education Clinic, opened in December.

Construction crews have already started to resurface the parking areas into a new configuration to accommodate the new building and are gutting the seventh floor of the existing clinic building to prepare for the preclinical lab renovations and a new student lounge.

Resurfacing and expansion of a student and faculty parking lot is underway.

Funded entirely by FEMA to replace the space lost in the basements and first floor of the clinic building after Hurricane Katrina, the new building will house the school’s clinical and basic-science research facilities, a state-of-the-art faculty practice, and the mechanical and electrical equipment for operation of all buildings.

(l-r) General superintendents Charlie Harris from Construction Masters and Rene Ostarly from ARC Mechanical Contractors review preclinical laboratory plans with Dean Henry Gremillion

Funded with private and state funds, the student labs and lounge will encompass the entire 7th floor of the E.E. Jeansonne Building. Fundraising for the labs continues, for both outright and endowed funds. The endowed fund will be used to sustain and upgrade the labs in the future.

The new Interprofessional Education Clinic is one of the few clinics in the country and the only one in southeast Louisiana where patients see both a nurse practitioner and a dentist in the same visit for assessment of their total health. The effort was funded with both private and public funds.

Special thanks to the LSU Health New Orleans Foundation, Louisiana legislators, and our alumni and friends who have helped to make these projects possible.