Professor Glenn Clark has been been recognized with a 2018 USC Mentoring Award for his longtime support of junior faculty members, postdoctoral scholars and residents.

The university award is meant to honor faculty members for helping to build a supportive academic environment through faculty-student mentoring and faculty-faculty mentoring.

“Your generosity in sharing your time and wisdom is an invaluable service to your mentees, your school and the university,” USC Provost Michael Quick said in the award letter. “I am grateful for your efforts to create a university in which all students and faculty can reach their full potential.

To receive a USC Mentoring Award, a part-time or full-time faculty member must serve as a role model for their mentees, make time to share knowledge, experience and feedback; and work with mentees from underrepresented, first-generation or marginalized groups, among other qualifications.

A Role Model

Clark is a world-class leader in orofacial pain and oral medicine research. He has authored four books, 23 book chapters, 162 abstracts and 205 peer-reveiwed journal articles.

He established the school’s orofacial pain discipline and served as past director of the orofacial pain and oral medicine advanced specialty program.

For more than 12 years, Clark has worked tirelessly to create highly regarded online programs in orofacial pain and oral medicine, geriatric dentistry and pain medicine, among others. Today, Ostrow has a total of three online master’s degree programs and four online certificate programs.

Ostrow’s distance learning programs in orofacial pain and oral medicine and oral pathology and radiology are the nation’s largest. Last year, Clark was named the Assistant Dean of Distance Education.

Generosity of Time

“I have seen firsthand the countless hours Dr. Clark spends with junior faculty and current and former residents,” Ostrow Dean Avishai Sadan said in his nomination letter. “He is the first person they call on when they have questions about research, clinical care and for general advice in navigating the ins and outs of academia.”

Through the years, Clark has amassed a large group of mentees — some of which have joined the Ostrow faculty themselves and others who have gone onto other institutions. He has been known to visit mentees at their new institutions to serve as a consultant as they develop their own research and educational programs, Sadan said.

Spirit of Inclusion

“Without Dr. Clark’s vision for inclusion, a person like me (Hispanic, female, from the small country of Costa Rica) would not have had the opportunity to come to the United States, to a prestigious university like USC, where I have been able to improve my skills and to become not only a full-time academic but a section chair,” said Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry Piedad Suarez OFPM ’06, MS ’18, section chair for Geriatric Dentistry and Special Patients.

“Dr. Clark has identified and supported women and minority faculty in their career development and helped promote them into leadership roles,” Sadan said.

In addition to Suarez, Clark has mentored Assistant Professor of Clinical Dentistry Reyes Enciso MS ’09, Clinical Assistant Professor Phuu Han OFPM ’09, DDS ’12 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Dentistry Mariela Padilla.

Past dental faculty to receive the USC Mentoring Award have included Professor Malcolm Snead (2010) and Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry Kian Kar DDS ’95, PERIO ’99, MS ’00 (2013).

Clark will officially receive his award at the USC Mentoring Awards ceremony and reception on May 2.