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Alumni create term endowed chair honoring mentor

Dr. Mark Lisagor, a graduate of the UCLA School of Dentistry’s D.D.S. program and its postgraduate training program in pediatric dentistry, remembers his former teacher, Dr. Thomas Barber, as a dynamo in the classroom and in the school’s teaching clinics — a passionate pediatric dentist and educator who wowed dental students with his ambidexterity.

For his part, Dr. Scott Jacks, also a graduate of the same program, can’t help but think of Dr. Barber when he recalls his training in pediatric dentistry

“The two are synonymous,” Jacks explained. “Tom brought recognition to the specialty, and he created a big family.”

By all accounts, Barber, who died in 2008, is credited with singlehandedly establishing — and then growing — this training program at UCLA.

Barber believed in building from within, said his friends. Not only did he inspire countless dental students to pursue children’s dentistry, but many of his students went on to become educators themselves, giving back to the profession by training still more generations of children’s dentists.

Dr. Robert Berson is part of this legacy. A member of Barber’s second class of pediatric dentistry residents, Berson has served on UCLA’s dental school faculty for nearly three decades.

“Tom had vision. He made a tremendous impact on other people,” Berson said. “He was the embodiment of what a dental educator should be.”

Motivated by their deep appreciation for their mentor’s contributions, Lisagor and Jacks teamed up in 2006 to launch a fundraising campaign in Barber’s honor.

In the course of just two years, 40 of Barber’s former students and colleagues and the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry Foundation pledged more than $500,000 to establish the Thomas K. Barber Endowed Chair in Pediatric Dentistry in honor of a beloved role model and friend.

The new chair, the sixth to be approved for the dental school, is intended to support the teaching and research activities of a pediatric dentistry faculty member, and is a sign of the school’s and the alumni’s strong commitment to the field.

“The Barber Chair is our way of giving back to the man and the program that made our careers possible,” Lisagor said.

In addition to fulfilling his role as the first chair of pediatric dentistry at UCLA, Barber also served as interim dean of the dental school and was part of a group instrumental in forming the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry. He became its fourth president.

Barber headed the pediatric dentistry department at the University of Chicago-Illinois before joining UCLA in 1969 just five years after the dental school was established. He ended his quarter-century of service to the Westwood campus with the title of clinical professor emeritus.

In 1957, Barber co-authored a landmark article that advocated orthodontic intervention to improve children’s oral health. It is credited with expanding clinical thinking and removing the barriers between the specialties of orthodontics and pediatric dentistry.

“Thomas Barber was a prominent national figure in children’s dentistry, a charismatic educator who inspired an entire generation of pediatric dentists, both academicians and private practitioners,” said No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. “The term endowed chair in his name will help us to attract and retain a junior-level academic pediatric dentist, of which there is a severe national shortage.”

Dr. Barber died at the age of 84 shortly before the chair in his name was officially established. However, he was aware of his former students’ efforts to honor him and was known to be deeply touched by their gesture.