The TMCC Foundation recently held a grand opening event on to dedicate the William N. Pennington Dental Wing, located at the Dandini Campus.  The major gift from the William N. Pennington Foundation demonstrated a partnership and investment committed to strengthening Nevada's dental health industry through education, economic diversification and private industry.  

 

"The William N. Pennington Dental Wing is the home of TMCC's renowned dental assisting and hygiene programs," said Dr. Maria Sheehan, president of TMCC.  "The renovations afford us the opportunity to maintain high standards of achievement while meeting student and employer expectations and pursue additional revenue sources for the programs and the College." 

 

Renovations to the dental clinic will allow TMCC to seek approval to become a Dental Assisting and Dental Hygiene certification testing center and to hold continuing education courses for dental health practitioners.  Both will provide a revenue source for the dental programs and the College. 

 

The only program of its kind in northern Nevada, TMCC's one-year dental assisting program is now in its 25thyear graduating 10 students each year.  The 13 year-old dental hygiene program garners extremely high national exam scores for graduates.  Both programs prepare students to seek high-skilled, high-wage employment and boast 100 percent job placement rates for those graduates seeking employment.

 

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UNLV was recently recognized as a top university for its comprehensive approach to student mental health programming. The university was one of just 30 awarded the JedCampus seal from the Jed Foundation, a national non-profit that advocates suicide prevention and mental health programs for college students.

 

The seal is part of the foundation's JedCampus program, which assesses how well a university works collaboratively beyond its counseling centers to approach mental health services for students. This includes counseling and suicide prevention programs, health and life skills programs, and educational outreach for faculty, staff and students. The seal is valid for two years.

 

"UNLV is honored to be included in the first class of schools recognized by the Jed Foundation for our commitment to the emotional well-being of our students," said Jamie Davidson, UNLV associate vice president for student wellness. "College is a time of increased pressure when many students experience symptoms of emotional health issues. We take pride in working collaboratively at UNLV to decrease the stigma of seeking help through outreach and education, and by providing accessible and high quality mental services."

 

As part of the process to earn the seal, universities took a voluntary, online self-assessment reviewing their campus mental health and suicide prevention programming. The Jed Foundation then compared the school's responses to the recommended practices outlined in The Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention on College and University Campuses developed by The Jed Foundation and Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

 

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The UNLV School of Dental Medicine has been working to increase diversity among its student population, and has been finding success through unique and innovative outreach programs. Recently, The UNLV Hispanic Student Dental Association (HSDA) hosted forty inner-city high school students who were primarily Hispanic or African American, ranging from fourteen through eighteen years of age.

 

The two-day event was held at the UNLV School of Dental Medicine where the young high school students were introduced to the field of dentistry and its several specialties including, orthodontics, dental hygienist, dental assistant and dental laboratory technician. During the first day of the event, experts from each field gave short lectures including Q&A session afterwards.   On the second day of the event, the students participated in a hands-on general dentistry activity by restoring typodont teeth with amalgam and composite materials. The students were able to take alginate impressions of their hands, which were poured in stone and given to the students as a souvenir.

 

"The students were completely engaged and demonstrated a genuine interest for the different fields of dentistry," said School of Dental Medicine Dean Karen West. "After participating in this outreach event, several students indicated that they had found 'their calling'."

 

Additionally, a report from faculty at the School of Dental Medicine was recently published in the Journal of Dental Education. The article featured the Dental Prospects Program which works to increase attendance and retention among underrepresented minority populations.

 

Below is a brief excerpt of the publication:

 

McClain M, Jones FR, Curd FM. Increasing Dental Student Diversity through the UNLV Dental Prospects Program. J Dent Educ 2013 77:548-553.

 

"The UNLV SDM Dental Prospects Club was initiated by a group of undergraduate minority stu­dents from low- or middle-income backgrounds. Many of the students could be classified as non­traditional, economically disadvantaged, or first generation college students and had marginal grade point averages (GPAs), science grades, or Dental Admission Test (DAT) scores. An additional chal­lenge for these students was the fact that many had to work full-time (a minimum of thirty-two hours per week) while attending college. Because of this, traditional assessment methods used by dental school admissions personnel were viewed by these students as a serious challenge, especially since these students were not considered academically competitive by their pre-health professions faculty advisors.

 

Many of these students faced a further difficulty in that many of their parents were unemployed due to the recent economic downturn. This led to extreme financial difficulties that forced the students to be the family breadwinners in order to support younger siblings. As a result of these hardships, the students joined together and sought out dental faculty mem­bers willing to advise, counsel, and provide direc­tion to them in their quest for admission into dental school. These faculty advisors became committed to helping Dental Prospects members in their pursuit of dental school admission.

 

Through the embedded cognition process of working side-by-side with faculty members and den­tal students, many of these students' self-esteem grew stronger, enabling them to envision themselves as successful students and future successful practicing dentists. With creative scheduling by predental fac­ulty advisors, students learned how to manage their schedules and successfully complete the predental Dental Prospects program. As a result, many Dental Prospects students have succeeded in being admitted to UNLV SDM. This, in turn, is helping the UNLV SDM achieve its goal of increasing the diversity of its student body."

 

For a copy of the full article, please contact:

Dr. Mildred A. McClain via email at millie.mcclain@unlv.edu or by phone at (702) 774-2642