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James A. Lalumandier, an assistant professor and chair of community
dentistry at CWRU's School of Dentistry, has been awarded the
first-ever Provost's Academic Leadership Award for extraordinary
achievements and leadership in educational innovations.
 "Making
connections—connections between patients and caregivers,
among institutions, between people of different backgrounds, between
what is taught in the classroom and what is experienced in the
clinic and between education and health care policy—these
are the hallmarks of James Lalumandier's service at the CWRU School
of Dentistry and in the Greater Cleveland community," said CWRU
Interim Provost Lynn T. Singer during commencement this weekend.
"Nowhere are they more apparent than in the school-based dental
sealant program that arose from his idealism, vision, persistence
and hard work, which embodies the intent of the Provost's Academic
Leadership Award."
Lalumandier's primary research interests have focused on preventive
treatment of children through fluoride supplements in drinking
water and diet.
From his arrival on the CWRU campus in 1996, Lalumandier has
worked with a number of community organizations, such as the Free
Clinic of Cleveland, to involve students in providing dental care
to patients who otherwise would have little or no access.
In 1999, with funding from the St. Luke's Foundation, Lalumandier
combined his interest in preventive dentistry, knowledge of dental
sealant programs and experience placing dental students in community
settings to design and implement a pilot school-based sealant
program in six Cleveland schools. Dental school faculty and students
visited some of the most impoverished Cleveland neighborhoods
to perform on-site dental exams and apply sealant to the teeth
of second and sixth-grade children.
The pilot program was very well-received, so the St. Luke's Foundation
challenged Lalumandier to expand the sealant program district-wide
to all 15,000 second- and sixth- graders and to expand the services
provided to include referral to dentists for additional treatment
and education.
Lalumandier earned a bachelor's degree in biology from St. Anselm
College in 1968. He received his D.D.S. from Georgetown University
in 1973. After serving in the military for 20 years, he completed
a master's of public health program at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill and a public health residency at the Division
of Public Health in Raleigh, N.C. He is one of only 100 board-certified
public health dentists in the United States. Lalumandier also
is a former faculty member at The Ohio State University and worked
at the Ohio Department of Health.
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