Wacker and Taylor wrote in The Visionary’s Handbook that the closer your vision gets to a provable truth, the more you are simply describing the present.  So here we are today and the future is now, but isn’t it the present and there will be a new future.  To succeed in the short term, you need to think in the long term.  Yet the greater your vision and the longer the time interval over which you predict results, the greater the risk that you will be unable to take the necessary steps in the short term to achieve the long-term goals.  The tension between short- and long-term planning has never been more at odds.  Discoveries about the future tend to make actions in the present irrelevant, but only if you look at them in the context of future activity.  Activities in the present tend to make discoveries about the future irrelevant, but only if you judge them by the standards of short-term success.  By its very nature the future destabilizes the present.  By its very nature the present resists the future.  To survive you need duality, but people and institutions by their very nature tend to resist living in two tenses.  The students, faculty and staff of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine have lived dual lives for the past several years and I want to publicly thank them and congratulate them for their tolerance and understanding.  During my watch we had our first successful school accreditation in 1996 while we were supporting both the last classes of the 5 year curriculum and the first of the 4 year PBL program.  It was fitting then, that our most recent accreditation in October 2003, which went even better than the first, occurred when people were scattered, classrooms all over the place, and the framework of the new building was rising.  So what shall we plan for 2010?  Just kidding.

            The seeds for this structure were sown in 1993 when we opened and dedicated the Harvard Dental Center.  It was clear that eliminating the laboratory and classroom space for better clinical facilities was important, but one for which HSDM paid a price, the price of science.  Fortunately, our new collaboration with the Forsyth Institute signed December 3, 1993 enabled a joint program of science with a shared basic science department that benefited both institutions.  At the time I asked the architects of the Dental Center to prepare plans for a building which might replace the Interim Building and simultaneously and surreptitiously I changed its name to the Temporary Building.  Out of such false starts do triumphs emerge and to make a long and very complicated story short, the rest is history, which included selection of architects and delays due to the need for a Longwood Medical area master plan.  This was not the first attempt to acquire or build new facilities for the school.  The building we celebrate today is the result of good planning, good fortune and luck.  I’m also sure that making Bob the Builder our unofficial mascot for the project helped somewhat.  It is a dream come true.

Let me take a few moments to recognize all those who were instrumental in the planning, design, construction, move and livability of the building.  First, Kevin Hurton of the Medical Area Planning Office and Kevin Connors who began the selection process for architects in October 2001 and squired the entire project.  Bruce MacIntyre and Pat Agostino who put up with my constant requests for tours during construction.  The architects, Rothman partners, and Gabriel Yaari and Martha Rothman in particular for an unbelievable result.  Berry Construction for its part of erecting this magnificent structure in a relatively short time, specifically Charles Viola and Peter Campot.  The Boston Redevelopment Authority chaired by Mark Maloney, whose dad was an HSDM graduate.  The faculty and staff program planning group led by the ever active Mary Cassesso and Lia Sgourakes.  The staff of the Office of Alumni Affairs and Development for organizing this event and tomorrow’s alumni day with special thanks to Angela Alberti.  Last but by no means least, the Board of Fellows of HSDM, Chaired by our master of ceremonies today, Gerard Moufflet.  Their leadership gift has named the first auditorium HSDM has ever had.  Their dedication to the school is unbelievable and most appreciated.  I thank all the alumni of HSDM who acknowledge how this school impacted their lives through their careers, leadership and compassionate care of human beings.  A professional education does not have to be devoid of flexibility and scholarship.  This new building lets us continue to meet that goal.

In 1909 at the dedication of the red brick building it was said, “Without this building little advancement could be made.  But with this building all things seemed possible”.  At that time, X-rays had just been introduced, the only restorative material was amalgam, foot drills were the norm and science was anatomy and histology.  Think of what the new building we dedicate today means in terms of the 1909 dedication remarks.  This colorful and transparent 70,000 square foot building replaces the 11,300 sq. ft Interim Building.  All glass and steel and light, spiraling above its host building, its sculptural form creates a new center to the Harvard medical campus.  Today, that message of transformation informs our direction.  We search for a new member of restorative dentistry and biomaterials science who is an expert in stem cell biology.  We have investigators who study Darwin’s finches’ beaks for bone morphogenetic proteins, and molecular geneticists and cellular biologists studying the genetics of bone formation and resorption with orthodontists, periodontists and oral surgeons.  Epidemiologists, statisticians and bioinformaticians describe relationships between causes and effects that couldn’t even be imagined before.  Graduate students finally have a proper place to sit and study close to their clinical venues, and faculty are all back together under a single roof, albeit purposefully not organized by departments.

Dentistry can suffer from isolationism.  But here in the Faculty of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine is just one part, and it all began in 1867.  Even my tie links green and lavender, the academic colors of dentistry and medicine.  The building we dedicate today is designed to achieve transparency of organization and transparency of substance.  The building permits researchers from the entire medical area to be able to interact with clinicians and students.  Open laboratories are visible through their glass walls even to passersby from the street.  There is transparency too in how this building connects itself to the old via bright sky lit corridors.  As a published review of the building noted, “but it is the active form of Harvard’s new building that invigorates this place, and it is the building’s form that is memorable when visiting the site.  There is regularity to the Harvard medical campus – its buildings are mostly big, solid boxes distributed through the landscape around Longwood and Huntington Avenues.  And this building, smaller than almost all of its neighbors, responds to them by contrasting itself through its controlled, yet sculptural form.  Its form literally pulls the building up into the air, freeing it from the ground, gathering its glassy mass under a great visor up where you can see it from the street.”

            When you tour the building, I call your attention to the beautiful recognition wall thanking all the friends of the school and the kiosk that highlights our legacy of achievement.

            I dedicate this building to all those who follow us in providing an even stronger foundation for them to make their mark in prevention, discovery and practice in order to help people achieve greater health and well being.