Texas A&M College of Dentistry
2020 Teachers of the
Year Awards
by Carolyn Cox and Kathleen Green Pothier
Texas A&M College of Dentistry recently named its 2020 Teachers of the Year. This award, which is
presented annually by the college’s alumni association, recognizes a dental and dental hygiene faculty
member whose mentoring styles, personalities and expertise make a lasting impact on their
students’ education. Here’s a look at why these two outstanding faculty members were overwhelmingly
selected by the student body.
Hennessy joined the College of Dentistry in 2013
after a 27-year career with the U.S. Army Dental
Corps. He initially split his time between the General
Dentistry and Diagnostic Sciences departments
but soon transitioned full time to diagnostic
sciences, where he served in the Oral Diagnosis
Clinic. In summer 2019, he joined the newly established
comprehensive dentistry department.
“I try to treat students as the professionals they
are,” he says. “Every patient is different; every situation
is different. I try to offer guidance and to be
as helpful as possible, because I want learning to
be as positive an experience as it can be.”
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Dr. Bernard Hennessy
Encouragement and a team-focused approach to clinical instruction
have caught Dr. Bernard Hennessy’s third- and
fourth-year students’ attention. Qualities like these prompted
students to select him as Dental Teacher of the Year.
“I am humbled to receive this award, knowing how many talented
and dedicated faculty members I work with side by side,”
says Hennessy, assistant group practice leader and clinical
associate professor in the Department of Comprehensive Dentistry.
“When I look around me, all I see is positive faculty whose
philosophy is similar to mine.”
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As a member of the Admissions Committee for several
years, he now has the opportunity to see some
students poised to graduate whom he interviewed
on their way in.
“These dentists-to-be are an impressive group,” he says. “They
are overall just a very positive group of people. They make the
job of teaching truly a rewarding experience.”
Hennessy is a 1986 graduate of the University of Illinois at
Chicago College of Dentistry. He completed a two-year AEGD
program at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1998. He subsequently served
in program director roles for several of the Army’s one-year
AEGD programs, where he provided advanced general dentistry
instruction to new dentists. Along the way, he worked with several
Army dentists who ended up teaching at Texas A&M College
of Dentistry.