Open to Health is a drive to support growth at
The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston
We're building a new dental school. Establishing new scholarships and endowed professorships. Researching ways to diagnose and treat disease or injuries. And caring for patients who have nowhere else to turn. We need you to make these dreams come true. The challenge is here. The moment is now. Please join us.
- In Their Own Words
Fred Garrett, DDS, MS- Kansas native Fred Garrett honors his school teacher parents and all the other educators whose dedication helped make him the successful orthodontist he is today.
Denton A. Cooley, MD- Famed heart surgeon remembers his dentist father, Dr. Ralph Cooley, who was an inventor and national leader in dentistry.
Billy Joe “B.J.” Westbrook, DDS- Dental school in Houston in the 1950s "was a miserable existence," says this Class of '54 alumnus, but dentistry has made amazing things possible.
- News
Historic Gift Challenges UT Alumni
When Fred Garrett was growing up in Kansas in the 1940s, his schoolteacher parents worked hard to make a living in the public school system, setting an example that would shape his life.
Now 76, Fred Garrett, DDS, MS, is a board-certified orthodontist and clinical professor at The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston, where he and his wife, Dianne, have established the first endowed chair in the school's 106-year history.
Representing a $500,000 commitment, the Fred A. and Dianne F. Garrett Endowed Chair in Orthodontics is dedicated to Fred's parents, Frank A. and Rosa Lee Garrett, and all the other educators whose dedication helped make him the success he is today.
"From the moment dentistry said 'yes' to me through my acceptance letter to UT School of Dentistry, I've had a love affair with the profession. And what better way to give back, than to the institution where it all began? Our future colleagues deserve the same opportunities we've enjoyed."
S. Jerry Long, DDS '66, Houston general dentist and Open to Health volunteer.About Open to Health
See a video that explains where we are,
why we're doing this, and ways you can help.
The new dental school building, seen here on Oct. 21, 2011, is scheduled to be complete in April.
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Endowments 101
When it comes to endowments, what's the difference between a "chair" and a "professorship?" Who can hold them and what do they do? Learn what these terms mean to The University of Texas.
