A Groundbreaking To Sink Your Teeth Into

Augusta, GA—Sinking the shovels to begin a project Augusta can really sink its teeth into…the new School of Dentistry at the Medical College of Georgia.

“This facility will help us attract even more new faculty and the real top level students that we get now,” said Dr. Connie Drisko, Dean of the Dentistry School.

The $112 million dental school will allow the MCG to increase its class size by more than 60 percent, to 100 students, making it one of the largest in the country, a huge investment by the state of Georgia to prepare dentists for the future.

“We understand, by 2015, we could very well have a million new citizens in our state, so we’ve got to prepare for that this is the first step in that direction,” said State Representative Quincy Murphy.

The new dental school is being built on the old Gilbert Manor property.

The city gave MCG $10 million to buy the land and tear down the buildings. Top state officials were on hand to tell the city thanks, it could not have been done without you.

“This is the key that enabled this to take place today and you have our gratitude,” said Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

“It sounds like it’s going to be a really great school they’re going to have a lot of technology the old school doesn’t have so it seems like we are going to be exposed to a lot more,” said Brittany Hudson, a sphomore Dental student.

Dental school officials say, every student who opens an office in a town helps the economy, saying it’s a $1.2 million economic impact on the community where they practice.

“And that’s every year the one point two is every year,” said Dean Drisko.

Construction should take a little more than two years; students should be inside the new dental school by early 2012.