May 24, 2013
ECU trustees make another run at dental school. Trustees at East Carolina University have decided to try again to get a dental school. But this time, instead of considering a research-oriented school, they'll look at a program that would train people to serve rural, poor communities. The trustees voted yesterday to study establishing a school that will focus on getting dental students into the field in underserved areas and poor counties of eastern North Carolina. A consultant will study the need for such a program, and figure out how much it would cost and how it would fit in E-C-U's existing medical programs. Officials hope the different focus will appeal to the U-N-C Board of Governors, which rejected E-C-U's proposal in 2002. That called for a research-intensive program similar to one at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
