University of Washington Provost visits Spokane for unveiling of new dental hub eyed as game-changer for region

In town for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a $2.5 million dental training hub on Spokane Falls Boulevard, the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Washington touted the effort as a way to bring more training to Eastern Washington.

Tricia Serio said she was “just really excited to have this new facility available for students and everything it represents.”

“This (Regional Initiative in Dental Education) program is absolutely unique in the country because it creates space for dental students to actually do part of their training in the eastern part of the state, and they have access to rural and underserved communities through 57 clinical sites,” she said. “It’s a real opportunity for students to be trained in a different way than traditional dental school, and it’s amazingly successful.”

The Regional Initiative in Dental Education, often shortened to “RIDE,” sees around 70% to 80% of its graduates going on to serve rural communities. In rural, often agricultural, communities, dental patients don’t always have access to the wide variety of specialists that can be found in a city dental office, so dentists need a more “holistic training,” she said.

RIDE began in 2008, funded by the state Legislature. Students have been able to begin their education in the program through Eastern Washington University, but would have to leave Spokane after the first year. With the new additions to the 840 building, students will be able to study in Spokane for a second year, and the program can accommodate twice as many students, growing in capacity from 32 to 64. The $2.5 million in funding also came from the Legislature.

“It’s a really wonderful investment from the state to serve all of the state of Washington,” Serio said. “University of Washington, we want to make sure everyone knows that we are serving the entire chain, and this is just a really visible commitment to do that for the long term.”

A biochemist by training, Serio began as a professor at Brown University in 2002. She joined the University of Arizona as the department chair of molecular and cellular biology in 2012 and then the University of Massachusetts Amherst as dean and later provost before joining the University of Washington in 2023. She said her growing role in administration stems from a desire to “help in the academic mission.”

“I think my background as the first in my family to go to college – it’s always been really important to me that people have access to education and have an environment where they can thrive,” she said. “So whenever something needed to be done on the administrative side, I always was willing to step in because I wanted to help other people have the gift that I had.”

Over the past 20 years, though, Serio said that public colleges in Washington have seen a flip in the proportions that the state and individuals each bear in the financial burden of education, with the student now responsible for around two-thirds of university funding and the state filling the remaining third. Coupled with that general trend are the ongoing threats to funding in science fields. With the government shutdown, the uncertainty over budget allocations for research grants “makes what we do very difficult at the moment, especially for students.”

“When you think about graduate students, their funding comes directly from these research grants. They’re learning how to become scientists, and at the same time they’re advancing projects that the federal government has identified as important for the nation, right?” Serio said. “And if those grants are not funded or not renewed, that investment that the federal government has already made to get them a couple years of training is in jeopardy.”

The system where the federal government funds research for universities was largely developed following World War II, spurred by concerns that the U.S. was going to fall behind the Soviet Union in technological advances. Serio said that it’s “been such an impactful partnership all these years to see in jeopardy.” Without funding, she said there will be fewer scientists in the future.

“When you think about – if we just talk about this region – the University of Washington has – just in Spokane – the economic output is about $18 million and 85 jobs in Spokane alone, just from the research enterprise,” she said. “And if we expand that to Eastern and central Washington, it’s over $80 million. So that’s jobs that are created right now in addition to innovation and discovery. So all of that is in jeopardy.”

Universities need to do more to connect with the public about how scientific research “is a positive for all of Washington and all of the country.” Serio used the COVID-19 vaccine as an example.

“I know that people have different views on this, but from a biochemical point of view, the speed at which a safe and effective vaccine was created was unprecedented in history,” she said. “But because of other factors, people were skeptical about taking the vaccine, and really, the impact of that was horrendous.”

Students are concerned about enrolling in a university right now, Serio said, whether it be due to a devaluation of higher education or worry over the federal funding uncertainty. Affordability is the current UW administration’s answer, including the Husky Promise, which pays for low-income Washington residents’ full tuition at the school.

“I think doing everything that we can to make college affordable is the responsibility for us all. About 80% of the jobs that have the highest growth potential in the next 10 years require a college degree,” she said. “About 70% of our students graduate with no debt right now, and we want that to be 100%.

“I do think it’s possible, and we’ll keep working on it.”