From the Spring 2020 Penn College Magazine: Lisa M. Zimmer’s resolute spirit has borne her through a 12-year journey to a bachelor’s degree in dental hygiene that included overcoming opioid addiction and developing a senior project, now a nonprofit organization, to provide oral health care to those in recovery. Read “Restoring smiles and lives.”
Shawn A. Kiser, dental hygiene program director at Pennsylvania College of Technology, was appointed to the position of commission site visitor for 2020-21 by the Commission on Dental Accreditation.
Site visitors assist the commission in a number of ways, including developing accreditation standards, serving on special committees and serving as site visitors to predoctoral, advanced dental and allied dental education programs. Site visitors are fact-finders, who report their findings to the commission, which then decides on a program’s accreditation status. Kiser’s term begins in October.
Last week, the Pennsylvania College of Technology’s dental hygiene program held a special event for its first- and second-year students, engaging an international motivational speaker who is well-known in the dental field to speak with students via videoconference.
“Our students have been going through such turmoil during this COVID-19 pandemic, that we felt the need to lift their spirits,” said Shawn A. Kiser, the college’s director of dental hygiene.
Penn College’s planned April 4 “Service Saturday” – a dental hygiene outreach to veterans, active-duty service personnel and their dependents – has been canceled.
Pennsylvania College of Technology dental hygiene students and volunteer dental professionals will provide free dental hygiene services to veterans, members of the armed services, and their dependents on Saturday, April 4.
Pennsylvania College of Technology’s state-of-the-art Dental Hygiene Clinic is scheduling appointments for the spring semester.
The clinic provides low-cost preventive dental hygiene services to the community, including cleanings, exams, X-rays and sealants. The clinic collaborates with area dental offices and can share records to prevent duplication of services.
Second-year dental hygiene students and faculty developed a program to provide professional-grade athletic mouthguards for members of the Penn College lacrosse team as part of the students’ Dental Materials and Specialties course. The multiweek project began with taking impressions of the athletes’ teeth to create exact replicas of their mouths. This model was then used, along with specialized equipment, to fabricate the mouthguards. The students were directed by faculty members Barbara K. Emert-Strouse and Marie Y. Stewart, both assistant professors of dental hygiene. The athletic mouthguards play a critical role in contact sports in the prevention of concussions and injuries to teeth.
Two informative posters presented by Pennsylvania College of Technology dental hygiene students placed in the top 10 during the Pennsylvania Dental Hygienists’ Association’s annual conference.
A poster titled “Locked in on Dental Implants,” presented by Pavel Dariychuk, of Leola, and Tyler J. Wetzel-Haynes, of Ono, placed fourth among 58 entries from across the state.
Jordyn Kahler’s poster, “Knowledge is Power: Oral Health Literacy,” placed sixth. Kahler is from York.
Penn College programs went pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On Oct. 9, radiography students dressed in pink. Potential workplaces for radiographers include mammography centers. The dental hygiene program held a “Pink Out” on Oct. 23. Throughout the day, students, faculty and dentists donned pink gowns during patient care activities in the Dental Hygiene Clinic. In addition, the dental hygiene student organization, SADHA, is making a monetary donation to a local cancer patient support charity.
Photos provided by program directors Christine L. Eckenrod (radiography) and Shawn A. Kiser (dental hygiene)
Pennsylvania College of Technology students provided dental care to more than 2,000 patients in the college’s Dental Hygiene Clinic during the 2018-19 academic year.
The college’s state-of-the-art Dental Hygiene Clinic is open to the public and provides low-cost services that include cleanings, exams, X-rays and sealants.
Since many patients require more than one visit, the students provided a total of 4,138 patient appointments.
On Sept. 21, dental hygiene students participated in a “Go Gold” event hosted by the Kiwanis Club of Bald Eagle and Nittany Valleys to raise awareness of childhood cancer. During the event, which was held in the Mill Hall Volunteer Fire Co., students performed free oral abnormality and head and neck screenings, which can help to detect oral cancer. They collaborated with health sciences students from Lock Haven University and networked with other community partners. The Penn College students were supervised by Bridget E. Motel, instructor of dental hygiene. This was the local Kiwanis club’s fourth “Go Gold” event.
Photo provided
Penn College’s dental hygiene program joined forces with the North Central Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center to co-sponsor a dental continuing education program. Held Sept. 20 in Penn’s Inn, the program featured presentations on HPV by Dr. Lynn Williams, who discussed “HPV and Prevention,” and Registered Dental Hygienist Debbie Zafiropoulos, who covered “How to Screen for Oral Cancers.” The well-attended event attracted about 140 dental professionals.
Photo provided
Among the latest additions to the Pennsylvania College of Technology community are new full-time faculty members for the Fall 2019 semester, as provided by the Human Resources Office (all effective Aug. 15).
A dozen residential Pre-College Programs and a daytime Creative Art Camp brought hundreds of young women and men to Penn College’s campuses in mid-June, providing hands-on entry to the myriad career opportunities reflected in the institution’s postsecondary curriculum. Keeping campers (and PCToday photographers) busy in recent days were these fun learning opportunities, some of which involved culminating projects: Architecture Odyssey, Autism Spectrum Post-Secondary Interest Experience (ASPIE), Automotive Restoration, Aviation, Building Construction (new this year), Creative Art Camp, Engineering, Future Restaurateurs, Graphic Design Summer Studio, Grow & Design Horticulture, Health Careers, Information Technology and SMART (Science and Math in Real-world Technologies) Girls.
A pair of first-term state senators visited Penn College on Thursday, stopping by several academic areas in the School of Nursing & Health Sciences and the School of Industrial, Engineering & Computing Technologies. The tour, abbreviated by a stormy forecast (but no less valuable), took Sens. Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-York) and Judy Ward (R-Altoona) to nursing, dental hygiene and three labs in the college’s ABET-accredited plastics program. The tour covered substantial ground: In addition to curricular information on all six schools, the legislators were apprised of the college’s integral corporate advisers, the focused global experiences of students traveling abroad, high-profile internship opportunities, and the essential contributions of equipment and expertise by business and industry. Also on the tour were President Davie Jane Gilmour; state Sen. Gene Yaw, chairman of the college’s board of directors; Michael J. Reed, vice president for academic operations/associate provost; Patrick Marty, chief of staff and assistant to the president for college relations; Zack Moore, vice president for government and community relations at Penn State; Jon Hopcraft, chief of staff to Phillips-Hill; and Senate photographer Christopher J. Guerrisi.