School of Dentistry Award Recipients
Friend of the School of Dentistry Award
DELTA DENTAL OF WISCONSIN
Stevens Point, Wis.
Delta Dental of Wisconsin knows a lot about smiles — and not just because it’s in the business of teeth.
Delta is the Marquette School of Dentistry’s most generous donor, and its ongoing partnership has significantly enhanced, and continues to enhance, students’ educational experiences. The company’s contributions helped fund the school’s dental school, which opened in 2002, giving students a 120,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility. It established two endowments to facilitate curriculum development and continues investing in students, funding 20 dental scholarships and two graduate fellowships. Delta also helps the Dental School help the underserved and less fortunate, supporting two dental clinics and a placement coordinator who links Marquette dentists with rural-area providers.
A friend to Marquette, indeed, but Delta is committed to excellence and helping others statewide. It’s Wisconsin’s largest nonprofit provider of easy-to-use, cost-effective employer dental plans. Its Premier network includes more than 80 percent of Wisconsin's dentists and covers more than 1.5 million employees and family members. And Delta works with professional organizations, health care providers, schools and government agencies to help low-income residents receive quality oral health care. Its annual Mission of Mercy, offered with the Wisconsin Dental Association, supports community dental clinics across the state, providing emergency care to more than 2,000 residents.
Beyond charitable outreach, Delta advances innovative research. It’s supporting a private biotech company that has identified peptides that kill the bacteria responsible for tooth decay but leave helpful bacteria undisturbed. In addition, Delta is invested in a disease management firm that is studying the links between oral diseases and other chronic diseases, trying to determine the impact those links have on an individual’s overall health and associated costs for treatment.
