Reeling in the years

Adjunct faculty member tops work anniversaries with 45 years

May 12, 2021 | by Kathleen Green Pothier

It’s not unheard of for newly hired Texas A&M College of Dentistry faculty and staff to settle in and stay a while.

As the years fly by, milestone work anniversaries—starting at 20 years and up in 5-year increments—are usually marked with an at-work ceremony and a service award pin. This year’s get-together was put on hold, however, due to COVID-19 gathering restrictions.

Dr. Joseph Newman celebrates 45 years as an adjunct associate professor, a role he’s relished while initially working full-time in BUMC pathology as a microbiologist/immunologist.

Special recognition especially goes out to an adjunct professor who has notched 45 years teaching within the College of Dentistry walls. Joseph Newman, adjunct associate professor in biomedical sciences, says he has decades’ worth of great memories, but one in particular stands out.

When his wife was in labor next door at Baylor University Medical Center, the dedicated professor didn’t miss his hourlong dental hygiene lecture. He joked that he might be a dad before class was over. Sure enough, by the time he got back to BUMC, his daughter had arrived, he says. Years later, she would listen as he practiced class presentations. Between that and her special entrance into the world, Newman says these connections could have quite possibly played a role in his daughter’s chosen profession as a dentist.

While teaching part time at the college, Newman worked full time as a microbiologist/immunologist in the pathology department at BUMC, where he was later associate director of immunology, then associate director of virology. In 2011, he became technical director of flow cytometry at Medfusion, now Quest Diagnostics, in Lewisville.

“Working in the BUMC lab was rather hectic, especially solving problems related to patient care on the spot,” he says. “So lecturing was for me a relaxing environment where I had a captured audience who I could relay the relevance of the subjects that I was teaching.”

He says he also appreciates how graduate students keep him up on the latest in the field, as well as give him “insight into the importance of immunology and virology in the clinical setting.”

Newman is one of 23 faculty and staff being honored by the College of Dentistry this spring. Congratulations to our long list of dedicated faculty and staff as they celebrate milestone work anniversaries:

Employees receive service award pins like this to honor the years they’ve invested at the College of Dentistry.

Biomedical sciences

Joseph Newman, 45 years

Clinical affairs

Michael La Jesse, 20 years

Dental hygiene

Lisa Mallonee, 20 years

Finance

Gail Parrigin-Clark, 20 years

Endodontics

Sarah Chess, 20 years

Diagnostic sciences

John Wright Jr., 40 years

Imaging Center

Roxanne Edwards, 20 years

Office of the Dean

Paul Dechow, 35 years

Daniel Jones, 20 years

Larry Tadlock, 20 years

Oral surgery

Darlene Amos, 35 years

Nancy Kaufman, 30 years (in 2020)

Orthodontics

Reginald Taylor, 20 years

Pediatric dentistry

Ko-Yu Lin, 30 years

Tracy McLin, 20 years

Richard Mohundro, 20 years

Periodontics

Deborah Foyle, 25 years

Public health sciences

Angela Wilson, 20 years

Receiving and central stores

Terry Grayson, 20 years

Comprehensive dentistry

Rosemarie Zartman, 25 years

Jennifer Barrington, 20 years

Carolyn Coleman, 20 years

Cristina Rivera, 20 years

Arasely Thompson, 20 years