La Sierra University recently announced the appointment of two new Board of Trustee members approved at the university constituency meetings on March 15. The new board members are Carla Lidner Baum and Kathryn Linda Haycock Proffitt.

Baum is the director of the Dental Oncology Service at Loma Linda University School of Dentistry and assistant professor of Dental Educational Services. She also currently administers the largest known dental grant in the United States that pays for dental treatment of low-income children. After applying for $900,000, this project grew into a $3.6 million-dollar funded project that the county of San Bernardino, Calif., often calls its “star” and “most effective” grant ever awarded.

She is a director of the LSU Foundation board and very involved in the Riverside community. Baum chairs several committees, including the County of Riverside Oral Health Advisory Committee and the Tri-County Dental Society Council on Community Health. She also serves on many local boards, including Riverside County’s Court Appointed Special Advocates. She earned a bachelor’s from LSU (1978) and a master’s in cellular physiology from Loma Linda University and DDS from Loma Linda University School of Dentistry.

Proffitt served as the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Malta from November 1997 to March 2001. Prior to this position, she was president and chief executive officer of Call-America, a telecommunications enterprise that she founded in 1982.

A nationally recognized leader of the telecommunications industry, Proffitt has served on the board of directors for the Competitive Telecommunications Association (Comptel) and is a founding member and past president of APTEL of Arizona, an organization that represented competitive carriers in Arizona. Proffitt was also actively involved with the legislative process that resulted in the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Proffitt attended Portland State University and graduated in 1972 from the University of Oregon Dental School. In 1973, she completed post-graduate training in restorative dentistry at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. Proffitt was formerly a registered dental hygienist and served as the acting director of Dental Hygiene at Yakima Valley College.