The UNMC College of Dentistry and the McGoogan Health Sciences Library teamed to create a new mural gracing the wall of the waiting area for the dental clinic on the college’s main floor.
Although there have been ongoing efforts to more colorfully decorate the patient-facing areas of the college’s building, the new mural, which went up in February, is something more, said Emily Gish, who spearheaded the project for the college.
When Dean Gerard Kugel, DMD, PhD, saw a similar display at the Wigton Heritage Center Atrium in Omaha, he asked Gish to explore setting up a mural depicting the college’s history in its Lincoln home, as well.
The display features fabric photos backed by a mural that shows a current picture of the college. The photos also include two black and white images, one of the Lincoln Dental College and another, featuring a photo of the clinic, that tells how the LDC became the UNMC College of Dentistry. These three photos are bookended by colorful modern photos of students at the college.
“Dean Kugel wanted the patients to see the history of the dental college,” Gish said. “The display also features a QR code that provides the patient with more information on the college.”
Gish also worked with Carrie Meyer of the McGoogan Library to get fabric panels, created by Omaha company Renze, that give the college more versatility if leaders want to change the mural display, or perhaps rotate images, in the future.
“It’s a very slick presentation,” Meyer said. “They have the large square frames. They can switch them out as much as they want to. I’ve seen this style deployed in other institutions around Omaha, and there is a possibility we’ll be moving toward that style here at the Wigton Heritage Center sometime in the future.”
People have been enjoying the display, Gish said.
“It definitely adds to the waiting room,” she said. “And the flexibility – that we may be trading out the first and the fifth panel every now and then – that will keep it interesting as time goes on.”