Student Reflections
A Retrospective of Dental Education

School of Dentistry Buildings

In 1875, the U-M Regents provided $3,000 for the new dental college to hire faculty and provide a facility. For the first 33 years, the school made do with inadequate space and remodeled buildings. Construction of the 1908 and 1969 buildings, designed specifically for dental education, significantly improved the school’s program.

First Building: 1875-1876

The dental school briefly shared a house on N. University with the homeopathic college, but rivalry between the two colleges over scheduling led to friction. In one incident, dental students “stormed up the old wooden stairs and forcibly ejected the homeopathic students from the classroom.” In retaliation, the homeopathic students gave a cow a laxative and managed to get her upstairs. Dental students found her before any damage was done and lowered her back down the stairs with a rope and pulley.

Second Building: 1877-1890

After only two years, the dental college desperately needed more space and moved to a different house on S. University. An addition housed the freshman laboratory on the first floor and expanded the clinic on the second floor, making room for a museum and library. The junior laboratory occupied a former woodshed.

Third Building: 1891-1907

In 1891, the dental college moved to the former University Hospital on N. University. The regents provided $15,000 to expand clinics, laboratories and operating spaces for 150 students. Gas lighting increased visibility in clinics.

Despite improvements, the building was still inadequate. Students described the old buildings as “boards with battens over the cracks” and called them the “cow sheds.” In 1903, U-M President James Angell agreed the dental school was “wretchedly housed.” He pushed the regents for a new building to accommodate increased enrollment and provide modern facilities.

Fourth Building: 1908-1968

The new dental school was three stories of fireproof brick and stone with state-of-the-art facilities for operative and surgical clinics, X-ray, research and technical laboratories, offices, a library and a museum. It also had electricity and central heating. President Angell declared it the finest dental education building in the country. Fifteen years later, an addition increased floor space to accommodate up to 97 dental students and 30 dental hygiene students per class.

Graduate Studies Have a Home

The school’s desire to expand its graduate programs in dental specialties led to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Institute, the first building in the world dedicated to that purpose. Opened in 1940, it included an auditorium, clinics, laboratories and offices.

Sixth Building: 1969-present

In 1969, the school completed a new building that incorporated advances in dental instruction, materials and techniques into greatly expanded clinics, laboratories, classrooms and audiovisual and computer facilities. An entire eight-story wing was dedicated to faculty research as part of a university commitment to expand research. The building could accommodate 150 dental students and 80 dental hygiene students in each class, plus, 125 graduate students, an increase of 70 percent over the old building.

Student Profiles

 Many School of Dentistry students’ reflections, accomplishments, and tools are on view in the Student Reflections exhibit, installed in 2017 in the atrium and cafe area that connects the School of Dentistry Building with the Kellogg Building. Profiles below provide a sampling of the evolving dental student life at University of Michigan over the years.

Bion Bates

A typical student, Bion Bates (DDS 1905) grew up on a farm in Elsie, Mich., and worked there when he wasn’t in school. Bates kept a school diary, recording the weather, interesting class experiences, and expenses. That diary, along with his dental cabinet and his student instrument case, are displayed in the Student Reflections exhibit.

A photograph of the practice he’d later open back home in Elsie, including a “honey” of a new dental chair that he wrote about in his diary, can be seen across the atrium from the Student Reflections exhibit in Inside the Dental Practice: 1860-1940.

Gordon H. Sindecuse

The founder of the Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry was a graduate of U-M’s Dental School (DDS 1921). You can learn more about Dr. Sindecuse, in his own words, by checking out our excerpt of his memoir.

Jessica Rickert

Jessica Rickert (DDS 1975) was one of six women in her class of 140 and the first female American Indian dental student. In the Student Reflections exhibit, Dr. Rickert recalls courses where "it became more and more obvious that we would hold the very health of our patients in our hands, a huge responsibility." Rickert is an entrepreneur as well as a dentist. Check out two products from her company in another Sindecuse exhibit, Tooth Fairy Magic.

Travis Sterner

Travis Sterner (DDS 2005) is the most recent graduate to be profiled in this section of the Student Reflections exhibit.

In his student days, Sterner noticed that older dentists were more formal and authoritarian. Younger dentists laughed more, had a team mentality and built more informal relationships. The exhibit features his recollections as well as his student dental kit, a tackle box stocked with materials for the bridge preparation, temporary and endodontics portions of the Northeast Regional Board of Dental Examiners. The kit includes files, burs, polishers and materials for making impressions. Its contents can be searched our online collection using PastPerfect; The link should direct you to a page where you can search for objects from this collection by entering the term “Sterner,” or any other term you’re interested in. The accession number for the Sterner Kit is 0982.