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Strive-The Student View
Can We Build It? Yes We Can By Audrey Stratz and Nikia Taylor“I am confident that sharing information and communicating more frequently will truly make us a profession that speaks with One voice and shares One vision.” Building our professional community and promoting a collaboration of minds can benefit the dental hygiene profession and the public we serve. It provides an opportunity to learn from others and establish mentor-mentee relationships. Networking, a benefit of belonging to a professional association and key to professional advancement, also allows us to realize the potential that comes into being only when individuals join together. Ideally, this begins the first day of a student dental hygienist’s education. Upon our entering the University of Michigan (UM) Dental Hygiene Program in 2005, our advisors enthusiastically introduced us to what was then known as the Student American Dental Hygienists’ Association (SADHA) and the benefits of belonging to our professional organization. As new students, we didn’t know much about what we were getting ourselves into, but we did know that we wanted to do everything that had to do with dental hygiene. So when election opportunities rolled around, we ambitiously ran for treasurer and secretary of the UM student chapter of ADHA and won! From that moment on, we felt connected to something really special. We realize now that it was this first dip into the unknown that has plunged us headlong onto our professional paths.
As senior student dental hygienists (students begin the program as sophomores in UM’s three-year baccalaureate degree program), we experienced first-hand the positive benefits of collaboration and networking. We wanted to share this with all of our fellow student dental hygienists at UM and build our program’s community through involvement in our professional association. How did we arrive at this goal? Our involvement in ADHA as student members and our subsequent acceptance to the UM Scholars Program in Dental Leadership (SPDL) provided the impetus. What follows is the journey involved in achieving our goal.
Building Team LeadershipThe Scholars Program in Dental Leadership, established in 2006, is the first program of its kind to focus on student dental and dental hygiene professional leadership. SPDL is designed to aid in understanding your values, life goals, strengths and weaknesses to assist in the development of your own individual professional leadership plan. Monthly training events develop communication skills, team building, negotiation, and strategic thinking on an interpersonal and organizational level. SPDL focuses on providing practical experience, clarifying career goals and heightening self-awareness. The overarching goal of the SPDL program is to prepare students to embrace leadership roles after graduation by providing skill sets outside the traditional curriculum. As part of our SPDL involvement, we are charged to develop a capstone project that addresses a professional issue through the application of leadership and team-building skills.
To augment our leadership skills and further develop our SPDL capstone project, in May 2007, we participated in a special program at Camp Michigania (UM Leadership Connection) through UM’s Office of Student Leadership. This week-long event focused on group development and collaboration, identifying university resources and engaging in activities that stimulate personal growth. To gain a better individual understanding of our professional association, we visited ADHA central office in Chicago, Ill., in August 2007. This visit, coordinated through Danie Furgeson, RDH, MS, ADHA’s first-ever manager of student relations, provided us with an opportunity to meet with the ADHA executive director and the directors of education, research, governmental affairs, membership and communications. Through these meetings it became clear that ADHA really values the student voice. The directors sought out our opinions at these exchanges. We were able to gain practical experience working with the ADHA manager of student relations in order to effect positive change within the UM student chapter and strategies to increase awareness and understanding among our fellow students. It was amazing the way ADHA staff opened their offices and personal experiences to us. Through our leadership positions as student members of ADHA, we gained knowledge, support and confidence that we can make a difference in our profession.
The Success of the Community-Building EventAfter visiting the ADHA headquarters, we moved forward with our “Building Our Professional Community” event. With the help of fellow student leaders, class officers and advisors we determined this event would be best timed as soon as the fall semester began. Therefore, a “fall kick-off” would be the perfect way to promote the benefits of student networking and collaboration. It also would encourage involvement in our professional organization. Students from all three classes were invited to broaden the avenue of leadership possibilities, engage with one another, become involved in team-building activities and realize the benefits of belonging to their professional organization. With “Bob the Builder” as the mascot, student teams were identified by tools such as hammers, drills, saws, etc. They were led by representatives from the UM student chapter of ADHA, as well as class officers wearing hard hats and full of enthusiasm. The UM dental hygiene student community participated in icebreakers and team-building activities. A staff member from the campus organization, Leadership Connection, volunteered his time to help facilitate this portion of the program. Linking the students to the professional dental hygiene community, Danie Furgeson delivered the keynote address. She commended so many students for assuming leadership roles and provided them with an overview of ADHA’s focus on supporting student members. Students concluded the afternoon with teams using yarn to weave a web of connectivity, sharing what was personally meaningful from the day’s program. A wealth of raffle prizes was distributed and a delicious Greek dinner topped off the successful event. This event proved the importance of tapping into our university resources. All community colleges and universities have student group resources, and the success of this event relied on us reaching out to obtain those resources. For example, a large portion of the event was supported by a financial award from our university, obtained through a funding application process. This was a process we became aware of by participating in Leadership Connection and talking to other student groups. It’s important to reach out beyond our dental hygiene programs, because it is easy to forget that we are a part of a larger educational community. We also sought financial support from dental supply companies and were fortunate enough to find corporate sponsorship. In addition, our catering was generously discounted by a student member’s relative. All of these examples prove the importance of knowing your inter- and intra-group resources. A post-event survey confirmed this event was an overall success, with many students saying it would be great to have it annually. As an incoming student who was very overwhelmed, the Fall Kick-Off event made me feel welcomed by the Dental Hygiene Program and by the upper-class women. It was great to see how fired-up and confident the juniors and seniors were because I knew that someday I would be there too. Overall, I felt that the Fall Kick-Off was a great event to help us all come together and get to know each other. I feel that we have such a short time here at school to really interact with the different classes, and breaking the ice was the hardest part. Now I feel that it is much easier to approach people that I met at the Kick-Off. I hope that this is continued in the years to come. This was a great event! I had so much fun meeting and interacting with the incoming hygiene students! From the moment we became SADHA officers our first year of our dental hygiene program, we have learned many things about our future profession as well as ourselves. Our involvement as student members of ADHA will be forever imprinted on our memories. The mentorship we received has helped us develop skills that we have learned to use to become mentors to others. Our experiences will continue to draw us to leadership positions and opportunities long after we leave the dental hygiene program. Reflecting back, networking provided us with opportunities for new friendships and connections. For students, this can mean learning the ins-and-outs of dental hygiene programs directly from faculty and upperclassmen rather than trial-and-error. This includes clinical advice, how to study for certain classes and finding a board patient. This type of mentoring helps ensure the overall success of the mentee. Mentoring brings out the best in one another and perpetuates a cycle of positive influence. We believe mentoring has a trickle-down effect and has prepared us to be effective mentors within our student chapter. “Mentors are people who can see more in you than you can see in yourself ...Effective mentors are so unshakably convinced that we have greatness in us, and their vision of what is possible is so clear and powerful, that they wind up convincing us too.”1 Think about your daily interactions with others and how you could inspire and motivate others to be their best. Whether it is a coworker or fellow student, share your knowledge and experience to help develop, support and empower your community. Our vision was born from the support of our community, which includes the dental hygiene program, the UM student chapter of ADHA, SPDL, and campus resources at large. Look within your institution for avenues for networking such as funding, resources and staff expertise. Can we build it? Yes we can!
Reference
Audrey Stratz and Nikia Taylor are members of the University of Michigan Class of 2008.
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While serving as officers and members of the executive council, we immediately found ourselves expanding our leadership skills. With each event, we caught the fever to become more involved, and in turn found ourselves becoming advocates for students and professionals in dental hygiene. After completing the first year of our dental hygiene education during the summer of 2006, we were given the opportunity to attend the 83rd ADHA Annual Session in Orlando, Fla. This opportunity gave us access to information, workshops and products to help us become better professionals and students in dental hygiene. This was followed by the opportunity to participate as student delegates to the Michigan Dental Hygienists’ Association (MDHA) House of Delegates. In an effort to understand the importance of law in conjunction to the dental hygiene profession, we attended the MDHA Legislative Luncheon at the state capitol in Lansing, Mich. It was amazing to have the opportunity to speak with senators and representatives about state issues that affect oral health and the practice of dental hygiene. It was inspiring to know that our elected officials cared about issues that were important to us as students in the dental hygiene program.
To identify our issue, in the spring of 2007, at the end of our second year as officers and members of the executive council of the UM student chapter of ADHA, we developed and distributed a survey. The results identified the need for improved communication within our group and the need for a better understanding of student membership in ADHA. This led us to focus our capstone project on “building the professional community,” through an event that provided UM dental hygiene students with an opportunity for team building within our program, while integrating the role of the dental hygiene professional association as a component of the process.
