2026 Spring Leadership Conference--Preliminary Program

Welcome to the 2026 ACD Spring Leadership Conference!

This is a unique opportunity for Section leaders, and those who aspire to Section leadership positions, to work with Board members and other dental leaders on programming initiatives of national significance for the College and organized dentistry.

Information will also be discussed and shared at the Conference on how to strengthen Section engagement as well as the nuts and bolts of running a Section from an administrative perspective.

Your leadership and active involvement are invaluable to the College in helping to grow the present and next generation of dental leaders. Please bring your energy, enthusiasm, and ideas to Niagara-on-the-Lake for an enjoyable learning experience for all attendees!

When: April 30-May 2, 2026

Where: Pillar and Post Resort, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada

CEUs: 7-hours of continuing education

Cost: no registration costs, and most meals are provided. The only cost for participants is travel, hotel and incidentals.

Register at: https://acd.memberclicks.net/leadership2026

Pre-reading: The Standards for Leadership in Oral Healthcare

Schedule

Thursday, April 30

5:00 p.m. – Welcome reception for conference participants and their registered guests.

Friday, May 1

7:30 a.m. Breakfast

9:00 a.m. Opening Session

10:30 a.m. – Noon Round 1

12:15 Lunch

1:30 – 3:00 p.m. Round 2

6:00 p.m. Trollies leave for Big Head Winery

Saturday, May 2

7:30 a.m. Breakfast

8:30 – 10:00 a.m. Round 3

10:15 – 11:45 a.m. Round 4

Noon Working Lunch—wrap up and awards

Sessions

Team assignments will be on your name tag. Teams will rotate through the “Think Tanks” together both days.

Opening Session: Unlocking Your Leadership Potential

Upper Canada Hall

Karl Haden

Think Tank 1: Team Leadership Gallery Room

Sree Koka and Julie Connolly

Friday, May 1

Round 1, 10:30 a.m. – Team A

Round 2, 1:30 p.m. – Team B

Saturday, May 2

Round 3, 8:30 a.m. – Team C

Round 4, 10:15 a.m. – Team D

Think Tank 2: Local Leadership Simcoe Room

Terri Dolan and Robin Henderson

Friday, May 1

Session 1, 10:30 a.m. – Team B

Session 2, 1:30 p.m. – Team C

Saturday, May 2

Session 3, 8:30 a.m. – Team D

Session 4, 10:15 a.m. – Team A

Think Tank 3: National Leadership Studio II Room

Bob Faiella and Bill Calnon

Friday, May 1

Session 1, 10:30 a.m. – Team C

Session 2, 1:30 p.m. – Team D

Saturday, May 2

Session 3, 8:30 a.m. – Team A

Session 4, 10:15 a.m. – Team B

Section Management Lab

Upper Canada Hall

Suzan Pitman, Jan Remissong, and Meagh Graham

Friday, May 1

Session 1, 10:30 a.m. – Team D

Session 2, 1:30 p.m. – Team A

Saturday, May 2

Session 3, 8:30 a.m. – Team B

Social Events

Conference attendees and their registered guests should plan to join in the fun on Thursday, April 30th and Friday, May 1st!

Opening Reception

Thursday, April 30

5:00 – 6:30 p.m.

Pillar & Post Upper Canada Hall

Conference Dinner at Big Head Vinyard & Winery

Trollies will take us to the winery for dinner and delicious local wine. Participants and their registered guests are included in this special experience.

Friday, May 1

6:00 p.m.

Please be in the lobby by 5:50 p.m. to board the trollies.

Speakers & Facilitators

N. Karl Haden, PhD, FACD is the Founder and President of the Atlanta-based Academy for Advancing Leadership (AAL), an internationally recognized consulting and professional development firm. Dr. Haden is a driving force in elevating health professions education worldwide. His expertise benefits a wide array of academic institutions, administrators, faculty members, and students in fields such as dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, and other health sciences. Dr. Haden empowers his clients by creating and implementing tailored leadership development programs, cultivating ethical leadership practices, fostering the growth of high-performing teams and guiding them through organizational change, facilitating strategic visioning, championing innovative curriculum design, ensuring successful accreditation outcomes, and supporting the development of impactful new programs and schools. An insightful speaker, Dr. Haden has delivered over 400 presentations on crucial issues and evolving trends in higher education and health professions policy. He has authored over 80 articles on educational policy and is co -author of the 9 Virtues of Exceptional Leaders (2015) and 31 Days with the Virtues (2020). Dr. Haden’s contributions have earned him significant recognition, including his induction as an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Dentists, the 2017 ADEA Gies Foundation Gies Award for Achievement in Public or Private Partnership, the 2019 Professionalism and Ethics Award from the American College of Dentists, his membership in Omicron Kappa Upsilon, and a 2025 American Dental Education Association Chair of the Board Citation. Dr. Haden holds degrees in religious studies, the humanities, and philosophy.

Teresa (Terri) Dolan, DDS, MPH, FACD is the former Chief Dental Officer at Overjet, the global leader in dental AI. She previously served as Dentsply Sirona’s Chief Clinical Officer, leading the global Clinical Affairs function. Dr. Dolan is also professor and dean emeritus of the University of Florida College of Dentistry, where she served as dean and chief academic officer from 2003 until 2013. She is recognized for her contributions to dental public health, geriatric dentistry and as a champion for diversity and women in dentistry. Dr. Dolan is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University; she earned a DDS degree from the University of Texas and an MPH degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Dental Health Services Research Scholar, completed a Veterans Administration Fellowship in Geriatric Dentistry, and is board certified in Dental Public Health.

As a recognized leader in the dental profession, she currently serves as past-president of the Santa Fe Group, past-president of the American College of Dentists, president of the ACD Foundation, and previously served on the board of directors of the ADA Forsyth and the ADEA Gies Foundation.

Robin Henderson, DDS, FACD is a general dentist and she has owned her rural hometown practice since she graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. She has always been very passionate about the profession and has worked to grow herself and to create and strengthen collaborative relationships for the best possible patient outcomes. She embraces technology in her practice and holds herself accountable to leadership within her profession. Early in her career she was recognized by the ACD Washington Section with the Outstanding Young Dentist Award. Another of her favorite recognitions was receiving the American Dental Association’s Design Innovation Award, as voted the top dental office remodel in the country. In addition to volunteering in her local and state dental association and ACD Section leadership, she is affiliate faculty at the University of Washington School of Dentistry and considers it a great honor to serve as the ACD Regent of Regency 8.

Robert (Bob) Faiella, DMD, MMSc, MBA , FACD is a Past-President of the American Dental Association, and serves currently as a Director on the American Board of Periodontology, and as the President of the American College of Dentists Foundation

Bob received his pre- doctoral education from Villanova University, earning two Bachelor of Science degrees, and his DMD degree from Fairleigh Dickenson University School of Dental Medicine. He received his graduate training in Periodontology as an NIH Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard School of Dental Medicine, as well as a Masters of Medical Science degree from Harvard Medical School. During this time, he served five years as a Research Fellow with the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He also received his MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Bob has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine and has been invited to deliver the Commencement Address to eight Schools of Dental Medicine over the past ten years.

Bob Faiella, Chair of the Standards for Leadership in Oral Healthcare Task Force with Sree Koka, Task Force member. Both helped to introduce the Standards to the Fellows at the 2025 Fellows Forum.

Bill will facilitate the National Standards for Leadership “Think Tank.”

William Calnon, DDS, FACD

Sreenivas Koka, DDS, MS, PhD, MBA, FACD received DDS and MS (prosthodontics) degrees from the University of Michigan. He joined the University of Nebraska faculty in 1992, became a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics in 1995, and received his PhD in Oral Biology from the University of Nebraska in 1999. He is former Consultant and Chairman of the Department of Dental Specialties at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Sree received an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2013 and moved to Zurich, Switzerland to be Executive Director of the Foundation for Oral Rehabilitation.

Sree will lead the Team Standards for Leadership “Think Tank.”

Sree moved back to the US to focus on patient care and student education and to open Koka Dental Clinic, focusing on implant and removable prosthodontics in San Diego. Sree served as Dean of the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry from April 2021-May 2024. He is currently the CEO of Executive Leadership Enterprises LLC and committed to helping early- career and first-time leaders flourish in their new roles.

Sree is a Fellow and Past-President of the Academy of Prosthodontics, a Fellow of the American College of Dentists, President of the International College of Prosthodontists, and was Chair of MIT’s Sloan School of Management Alumni Board. In addition, Dr. Koka is the co -founder of the Future Leaders in Prosthodontics (FLIP) and Shaping the Future of Implant Dentistry (SHIFT) workshop series.

Julie Connolly, DDS, MPh, FACD attended Columbia College, of Columbia University, graduating with a degree in Political Science. She then attended Columbia School of Dental and Oral Surgery and the Mailman School of Public Health, graduating with a dual DDS-MPH degree. She completed a General Practice Residency at Mt Sinai Hospital in Manhattan before returning to Columbia for her specialty training in Periodontics, receiving an MS in Periodontics. Dr. Connolly is a Board-Certified Periodontist practicing in NYC with her father, Dr. Thomas Connolly.

Dr. Connolly is currently an Assistant Professor in Periodontics at Columbia College of Dental Medicine where she is also the Director of the Ethics Coursework teaching Ethics to both dental students and residents in lecture and small group format. She is also the Student Professionalism and Ethics Association (SPEA) Faculty Advisor at Columbia. Dr. Connolly is a former President of the Columbia Dental Alumni Association. She lectures on both Dental Ethics and Periodontics regionally and locally.

Tank.”

Dr. Connolly is a Past-President of the New York Academy of Dentistry and the Chair-Elect of the NY Section of the American College of Dentists. Dr. Connolly represents the ACD in the Kellogg Leadership Program at Northwestern University.

Dr. Connolly is a member of the Council on Ethics for the New York State Dental Association (NYSDA) and a former Chair of the Ethics Committee at New York County Dental Society (NYCDS). She is currently a member of the NYCDS Board of Directors and has represented NYCDS as a delegate and alternate delegate to the NYSDA House of Delegates.

Standards for Leadership the Work of the Task Force

For more than a century, the ACD has served as the conscience of the dental profession, advancing ethics, excellence, professionalism, and leadership. As oral health care continues to evolve, the profession faces significant and rapidly emerging challenges: rising patient expectations, transformational technological advancements, workforce shortages, and shifting models of care delivery. These pressures demand exceptional, accountable, and ethically grounded leadership at every level from chairside and practice settings to national and international professional arenas.

While dentistry has well- established standards in clinical practice, education, safety, and research, a critical gap remains in that there are no universally recognized standards for leadership in oral health care. This void affects the quality of patient care, team effectiveness, organizational performance, professional satisfaction, and public trust. Evidence from the broader healthcare field shows that effective leadership is associated with improved patient outcomes, higher staff engagement, and stronger organizational resilience. Emerging dental research similarly indicates that leadership effectiveness influences treatment acceptance, care quality, team cohesion, and practice performance. Leadership in oral health care is both a responsibility and an acquired capability. It is strengthened through experience, structured education, mentoring, and ongoing assessment. Establishing clear, ethically grounded leadership standards is therefore essential to guiding professional behavior, shaping expectations, and advancing leadership excellence across the career continuum.

To address this need, the American College of Dentists has developed Standards in Leadership in Oral Health Care, derived from the Ethics Handbook for Dentistry and aligned with internationally recognized principles of service selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, incorruptibility, openness, and honesty. These standards define core leadership expectations, outline progressive competencies at team, local/regional, and national/international levels, and provide a foundation for leadership development, assessment, and continuous quality improvement.

Adopting these standards will strengthen the profession’s capacity to meet future challenges, enhance patient experience, improve team and organizational performance, and support the sustained trust placed in dentistry by patients, communities, and society The standards represent a timely and essential advancement in leadership expectations for oral health care professionals.

In addition to Drs. Faiella, Dolan, Koka, and Haden, Sir Nairn Wilson serves on the Standards for Leadership in Oral Health Care Task Force.

Sir Nairn Wilson, BDS, PhD, MSc, CBE, FACD is President Emeritus of the College of General Dentistry and Emeritus Professor of Dentistry, King’s College London. At King’s, he was Professor of Restorative Dentistry and Dean and Head of the College’s internationally renowned Dental Institute between 2001 and 2012, and Deputy Vice-Principal (Health) between 2009 and 2012. He led the initiative (2016-2021) to form the College of General Dentistry. Nairn’s many other positions in dentistry have included Editor of the Journal of Dentistry (1986-2000), Dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1995-1998), President of the Academy of Operative Dentistry European Section (1998-2000), President of the General Dental Council (1999-2003), Co - chair of the Forum of European Heads and Deans of Dental Schools (2007- 2012), President of the British Dental Association (20152016) and Honorary Founding President of the College of General Dentistry (2020- 2021).

His many different interests have included clinical dental biomaterials science, practicebased research, international trends in dental education, and the recent history and future developments in the clinical practice of dentistry. He continues to author and edit a diverse range of contributions to dental literature, while serving in a variety of roles, including Patron or Trustee of various dental charities. His honors and awards, in addition to CBE, awarded in 2004, include the Bounocore Memorial Prize, a Dentistry Lifetime Contribution Award, the Award of Excellence of the Academy of Operative Dentistry European Section, the John Tomes Medal of the British Dental Association, two honorary doctoral degrees, and the International Association for Dental Research Ivar A Mjor Award for practice-based research.