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University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry Students Earn Schweitzer Fellowships

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Posted: June 23, 2009
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry Students Earn Schweitzer Fellowships

The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program, which provides yearlong fellowships to graduate health students for public service projects, awarded fellowships to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Dentistry’s Justin Welke and Denise Maniakouras, both going into their third year of dental school, for 2009-2010.

This selective program allows students to run a service project of their choice, under the guidance of a community agency, for an underprivileged community. Welke and Maniakouras will be educating children and their parents on healthy dental practices, and providing some oral health services such as exams and fluoride treatments. They will work with Head Start in Chicago’s Pilsen community near the (UIC) campus. Head Start provides social, health, and other services to children and families.
The program is highly competitive, with close to 150 health professions students and other graduate students in health related fields from the Chicago area competing. Only 34 were chosen.

“Selection is quite an accomplishment,” said Dr. Caswell Evans, Associate Dean for Prevention and Public Health Sciences. “To have two dental students selected is special.”

            Maniakouras said she heard of the program when one of her clinical instructors and a former fellow, Dr. Priscilla Chang, praised it during a presentation. It sounded tailor-made for Maniakouras, she noted. “I have always been interested in volunteering and wanted to outreach to my community,” Maniakouras said. “The fellowship will allow me to use my knowledge as a dental student and apply it in working with underserved populations.”

            Both Welke and Maniakouras expressed excitement over the opportunity to put their higher education to hands-on practical use, and for the opportunity to for once be the educators, teaching children to develop life-long, healthy habits. They have committed themselves for a year, but they “plan to use this fellowship as a way to gain the knowledge, tools, and networking needed to have a career that involves consistent service to those in need,” Welke said. 

            “Life-long” is something of a buzzword for Schweitzer fellows, whose projects are no isolated acts of kindness. Welke and Maniakouras are serious about the endurance of their work. Like all fellows, they would like to make a lasting impact on underserved communities – communities consistently neglected and forsaken. The permanence they have in mind is also necessarily educational, instilling habits that will last long after the fellowship ends. But this permanence is not limited to the Pilsen community. “I also hope to build lasting relationships with the other fellows,” Maniakouras added.  She plans on staying in the Chicagoland area to practice dentistry.

            Maniakouras and Welke hope their efforts can engender new service projects for agencies such Head Start, or bolster existing ones. At the very least, this experience will likely create dedicated professionals with the means and motive to be life-long community servants. 

            The Schweitzer Fellowship recently asked Dr. Evans to become a member of its Advisory Board. Information about the Schweitzer Fellowship may be found online at http://www.schweitzerfellowship.org/features/us/.
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