The School has offered dental education beyond the undergraduate level since the early 1890s. Only a few graduate degrees were granted by 1921, when the University's Graduate School recognized these programs and began to confer the Master of Science degree upon graduate dental students. Postgraduate dental instruction began in 1933, under the direction of Dr. Chalmers Lyons, when practicing dentists indicated their desire for some form of refresher courses, which would keep them abreast of advances in the profession. In 1937 Dr. Paul Jeserich was made Director of Graduate and Postgraduate Dentistry. Three years later the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Institute: Graduate and Postgraduate Dentistry were completed and Dr. Jeserich became its director. When he became Dean in 1950, Dr. Jeserich retained the directorship of the Institute and Dr. William Mann was appointed Assistant Director; he became Associate Director of the Institute in 1952. When Dr. Mann succeeded Dr. Jeserich as Dean in 1962, he assumed the directorship of the Institute and Dr. William Brown was appointed Associate Director.
Twelve programs of graduate instruction leading to the degree Master of Science are offered by the Institute: dental hygiene, dental materials, dental pharmacology and therapeutics, denture prosthodontics, endodontics, oral diagnosis and radiology, oral pathology and diagnosis, oral surgery, orthodontics, pedodontics, periodontics, and restorative dentistry. All candidates for the Master of Science degree, except those in dental hygiene and dental materials, are required to hold dental degrees. The degree Doctor of Philosophy is offered in dental materials, jointly with other University departments such as mechanical engineering, pharmacology, or physics.
Since the inauguration of the program of postgraduate dentistry in 1933, approximately 8,000 students had been enrolled by the end of the 1970-71 year. The number of postgraduate courses offered by the Institute increased from 48 in 1951-52 to 56 in 1971-72. During the 1971-72 school year 11 one-day, 12 two-day, 9 three-day, 17 one-week, 4 two-week, and 3 one-day-a week postgraduate courses were offered by the Institute.
In January 1965, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation granted $395,000 to remodel and air-condition the Institute. With the summer of 1966, the Foundation made an additional gift of $1.1 million to the University for several purposes, all related to the School's building program. A large part of the gift was to cover the costs of modernizing the Institute, and $375,000 was used to purchase much of the equipment for the new Television Center for the School of Dentistry and the Institute.
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Pages 104 - 105.
