The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry will receive $2 million of a $15 million gift to UMKC from the Sunderland Foundation for the renovation of its pre-clinical laboratory.

“We are so grateful for the transformational gift of the Sunderland Foundation, which will help the school achieve our goal of modernizing our pre-clinical lab space,” said Dean Marsha A. Pyle. “The gift will give us the opportunity to offer our students a terrific new learning environment.”

The school’s pre-clinical lab is the vital training area where first- and second-year students spend hundreds of hours. The gift will help finance 110 ergonomically-correct dental simulators, complete with head-and-torso simulated patients, and a much-needed refurbishment of the lab space and its air-handling system.

Updating the space with state-of-the-art equipment will not only help attract students, but will give them a realistic experience from day one. The renovations are scheduled to be complete in early September.