Dental hygiene program celebrates 70
Class of 2025 graduate Cristina Flores-Villarreal cleans a patient’s teeth. Flores-Villarreal, who graduated at 58, is believed to be the oldest new graduate of the 70-year-old program.
Give Texas A&M College of Dentistry’s dental hygiene program a big, broad smile. It celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2025.
The first dental hygiene students were accepted to the then-private Baylor University College of Dentistry in the fall of 1955. That inaugural class was open to recent high school graduates seeking certificates in dental hygiene, and some students were dental assistants.
Separately, there were dental hygienists who had been practicing under a special grandfather clause in a 1951 state law, but they received dental hygiene certificates from Baylor University College of Dentistry rather than from the dental hygiene program itself.
Today’s students – 32 in the first year and 30 in the second year – come to the bachelor’s degree program with many prerequisites, including several science courses. Many students have associate degrees, and some have bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“We are always looking for top talent and potential,” said Maureen Brown, clinical assistant professor and interim program director. “Dental Hygiene is a service industry at heart; finding students who want to use their skills to serve public health needs is one of the qualities our dental hygiene admissions team strives to identify.”
The application deadline for Class of 2028 is Jan. 5.
Brown said it could be a more competitive process than in past years. More than 200 applicants had initiated the application process online as of early December, often recommended by A&M Dentistry’s Office of Recruitment and Admissions.
All materials related to the application must be received in the Office of Recruitment and Admissions by Feb. 1.
Students entering the program must complete at least 60 semester credit hours of college-level coursework by the Summer 1 term before entry. That includes the State of Texas core requirements.
“It’s a rigorous program,” Brown said. “Students need to be ready to take on the challenge.”
A long history of providing preventive oral health care
Early dental hygiene students care for a patient
The program began thanks to a gift from the Caruth Foundation of Dallas and W.W. Caruth Jr., in honor of Texas philanthropist W.W. Caruth Sr. There wasn’t much fanfare. Still, the first class included students from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona and California, according to “Baylor College of Dentistry: The First 100 Years,” published to coincide with the dental college’s centennial in 2005.
Those first students completed a special course approved by the American Dental Association Council on Dental Education. Dental hygiene students in those first classes earned certificates in a two-year program, which was offered until 1978.
A&M Dentistry’s bachelor’s degree program began in 1964, and students spent much of the 1960s wearing white, starched, Florence Nightingale-like uniforms, according to the 100th anniversary book. The dental college initiated the four-year degree in response to ADA’s request.
The state assumed operations, and the dental college became a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian corporation, renamed Baylor College of Dentistry by 1971. The college joined the Texas A&M University System in 1995.
A dental hygienists’ market
Maureen Brown, clinical assistant professor and interim executive director of the dental hygiene program at Texas A&M College of Dentistry. She graduated from the program in 2003.
“Many of our graduates stay in the Dallas-Fort Worth area because their skills are in demand,” Brown said.
Nearly one-third of dentists nationwide reported recruiting dental hygienists, according to findings in the Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry‘s third-quarter report by the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute. Of those, more than 90% reported recruiting was very or extremely challenging.
Update Jan. 15, 2026: A fourth-quarter report released this month found 31.4% of dentists recruited dental hygienists. Among those, 88.3% reported that recruiting them was very or extremely challenging.
The new report went on to state that dentists are concerned about dental insurance issues, staffing shortages and rising overhead in the new year.
According to the same report, more than 20% of dentists who recruited dental hygienists reported that it took more than six months to fill the hygienist positions. Most dental hygienists work in dental offices, and many choose part-time schedules. An aging workforce and the fact that many dental hygienists left the profession during the early days of COVID-19 account for some of the demand.
Brown, who graduated from the program in 2003, said many of A&M Dentistry’s newer graduates choose to work as temporary staff in the first years of their careers until they find dental practices they like. It gives them more flexibility.
The median income of a dental hygienist was $94,260 in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment is expected to increase 7% between 2024 and 2034.
Improvements have been made over the years to more closely integrate the dental hygiene program with the dental program, and both groups of students routinely participate in community outreach events.
Professors are also finding ways to implement virtual reality into the dental hygiene program’s curriculum. Kayla Reed, a former clinical assistant professor in the dental hygiene program and now a doctoral student at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, received a $10,000 2024 Teaching Excellence Grant Award from Texas A&M University Health Science Center, funded by WoodNext Foundation, to purchase virtual reality equipment.
“Allowing our students access and education on some of these technologies will help them make the transition from traditional dental hygiene care to technology-assisted care, Brown said. “Increasing the quality and efficiency of dental hygiene treatments serves to improve oral and overall health outcomes.”
The Class of 2025 graduates were among the first in Texas to earn local anesthesia infiltration certification, which allows dentists to delegate anesthesia administration to dental hygienists. Infiltration is the injection of a local anesthetic near nerve endings.
The Class of 2025 included Cristina Flores Villarreal, possibly the program’s oldest new graduate at 58, and Cora Owens and her service dog Fozzie.
More recently, dental hygiene students Megan Fletcher and Kleesha Bevans earned prestigious scholarships. Fletcher, a second-year student, won the 2025 Dr. Janice DeWald Scholarship from Dallas Dental Hygienists’ Association. Bevans, a first-year student, earned the IDEA Student RDH Scholarship from Texas Dental Hygienists’ Association.