Starting in Fall 2028, Sacred Heart University (SHU) plans to introduce a new Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene. This will allow students to enter a direct gateway to dentistry through Sacred Heart University.
| Daniel Passapara, Sacred Heart University |
The four-year program will be housed within the College of Health Professions as its own department. The program will be located on the second floor of the Center for Healthcare Education and will include classroom learning, lab work and hands-on clinical experience.
Karl E. Minges, Dean of the College of Health Professions, said the program is being created partly due to the demand for dental hygienists in Connecticut and surrounding states.
“My hope is that the program becomes a model for preparing highly skilled dental hygienists while also addressing a significant workforce need in Connecticut and the surrounding states,” said Minges.
Professor Marie Paulis in the College of Health Professions, as well as the director of the upcoming program, stated that the idea originally came from Minges after researching dental hygienist demand in Connecticut and neighboring states in the Northeast.
“Dental hygiene is a wonderful profession that offers competitive wages, flexible schedules, and the ability to make a difference in the oral and overall health of clients,” said Paulis.
According to incoming Director Paulis, students will spend their first two years completing prerequisite science and core classes before moving into two years focused more heavily on dental hygiene and clinical work. Some of the prerequisites will include biology, chemistry, microbiology, anatomy and physiology. and nutrition.
Once students advance further into the program, the curriculum will include subjects such as dental hygiene principles, radiology, oral anatomy, clinical rotations, pathology, histology, pharmacology, periodontology, local anesthesia and ethics.
“The program will be quite rigorous and will prepare students well for their clinical and national board exams that will be required for licensure,” said Paulis.
A significant part of the program will be a complete hands-on experience. Students will work in a new twenty-unit community dental hygiene clinic in the Center for Healthcare Education.
At the on-campus clinic, students will provide cleanings and other oral health services to community members under faculty supervision. Minges said the university anticipates the clinic will serve more than 1,000 community members each year.
“As someone trained in public health, I am very excited about the potential of the teaching clinic to expand access to oral health services for individuals and families who may face barriers to care,” said Minges.
“It is kind of a Goldilocks program, satisfying demand from both students who are highly interested in the program and a workforce that is eager for new dental hygienists to enter the field,” said Minges.
Junior Katherine Snyder entered college as a biology major on the pre-dental track before switching to psychology after realizing she did not enjoy studying biology.
“Maybe if this program existed when I came to school, I wonder if I would have stayed on a pre-dental track,” said Snyder. “Being a biology major made me lose passion for health sciences. I feel like if I were a part of this program, I would have stayed on track to pre-dental.”
Pending accreditation approval from the Commission on Dental Accreditation, SHU expects to begin enrolling students in the Dental Hygiene program in fall 2028.
