News & Events
There’s More to a First-Rate Education than ‘Chalk and Talk’
Student, faculty and other participants in the on-campus Fall 2007 Northeastern Gnathological Society Meeting
Student and faculty participants in the Fall 2007 Greater New York Dental Meeting
Student and faculty tour Nobel Biocare
Hands-on TESCERA™ composite resin training for faculty is eventually a plus for students
As integral as the lecture and laboratory experiences are to a first-rate education, the “chalk-and-talk” classroom experience and hands-on lab work are no longer all that it takes to produce graduates truly prepared for success in an increasingly high-tech global workforce. Students need direct exposure to the real-world environment in the fields they plan to enter.
Today’s successful approach to education must be multi-dimensional and involve direct interface on the part of students with both the work they will be expected to perform in their careers and the people who are already doing that work. This can be accomplished through field internships, participation in professional conferences, competitions, state-of-the-art workplace tours and a host of other on- and off-campus activities designed to widen students’ horizons and add to their knowledge and skills.
Professor Nicholas Manos, chair of New York City College of Technology’s (City Tech) Department of Restorative Dentistry, understands this very well. “The department owes its success,” he says, “not only to the outstanding efforts of the faculty, administration, advisory commission members and alumni, but also to the dental technology industry. With both pride and a bit of amusement, I note that we are called ‘The School’ by virtually everyone in the restorative dentistry profession throughout the greater New York area.”
City Tech’s dental laboratory technology program is the oldest and largest degree program in dental technology in the country. It also is the first to have been accredited by the American Dental Association and the first to have been granted certified dental laboratory status by the National Association of Dental Labs. And thanks to generous help recently provided by the industry, the program also was the first to introduce CAD-CAM technology into its curriculum. Training in lasers, pressable ceramics and maxillofacial restorations such as eye and ear construction were recently introduced into the curriculum.
The program is located in the center of the largest concentration of dental labs in the country, with over 1,000 such facilities in New York City alone and another 276 on Long Island. In fact, City Tech’s is the only ADA-accredited program within a five-hour radius of Brooklyn; the next closest program is 20 minutes north of Boston. These facts plus faculty connections to the industry help ensure that virtually all program graduates are employed upon graduation.
The department’s unique history and its close ties with the regional dental laboratory industry enable it to offer students an educational experience that takes them into the field almost from day one, which helps them to form professional contacts and personal friendships that often last a lifetime. All second-year students are placed in summer externship sites in doctors’ offices so they can work directly in the clinical side of the profession while still in school. The technologists and other professionals with whom they work, many of them City Tech alumni, invariably warmly welcome them. The Greater New York Certified Dental Technician Study Group, established in 1935 and the oldest such group in the country, holds all four of its annual meetings at the College, and students are invited to participate without cost in all CDT professional developmental activities throughout the metropolitan area.
“All parts of the profession have come together in support of the City Tech program,” adds Manos, “including the manufacturers who make frequent donations of the latest equipment and finest materials, all of which allow us to stay at the cutting edge of a rapidly changing field.
“Not that long ago,” Manos continues, “restorative dentistry was an all-male profession. But enrollment in the City Tech program is now about 60 percent women, with the same healthy ethnic diversity one finds in all programs at the College. We are exceedingly proud of the fact that for four of the past five years, City Tech was identified by US News & World Report as the most diverse institution of its type in the Northeast. In our field, every part of the dental lab industry knows that City Tech is the leader in producing the highly skilled, diverse workforce that New York and the nation need.”
Among the many fall 2007 semester off-campus learning opportunities for department students that punctuated their educational experience was the Northeastern Gnathological Society’s Fall Meeting in mid-November. At the event, third semester students were exposed to top international speakers, developed contacts and relationships with leaders of the dental laboratory profession, and had an enjoyable day at Chelsea Pier 60.
The meeting exposed them to internationally renowned speakers like Michael Miscovitch, DDS, and Kamran Borjian who presented on the topic of “Dynamic Duos: Essential Partnerships In Restorative Dentistry.” A second seminar by Vincent Celenza, DDS, and Frank Celenza, DDS, on “Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation: Treatment Planning, Communication and Sequencing” demonstrated clinically documented multidisciplinary cases, including decision making, sequencing and execution. And the final presentation of the day by Douglas H. Goldsmith, DDS, and Gary Orentlicher, DMD, looked at “Computer Guided Implantology – A New Era.” The lecture reviewed the use of CT Scans, computerized treatment planning and surgical guides for virtual implant treatment. Both City tech students and faculty gained a first-hand insight into modern dental practices and the latest technologies introduced into the dental marketplace.
Later in November, the 83rd Annual Session of the Greater New York Dental Meeting, the largest such meeting in the United States, attracted thousands of world-renowned clinicians, speakers, lecturers and visitors from 77 countries worldwide. Seven City Tech students and one faculty member, Professor Renata Budny, held table demonstrations at the session on “Indirect Composite Resin Veneering” and “Successful Model Making.” A department professor held a table demonstration that included a discussion on “Simple & Multilayered Indirect Composite Resin Buildup Techniques.” These demonstrations allowed for one-on-one interactions between students and the professor and other meeting participants.
Department faculty will attend the largest dental conference in the nation to be held in Chicago in February 2008. There, they will present on the topic of the future of dental technology. “It is widely agreed,” says Manos, “that great things are happening at City Tech, and many other schools and groups around the country want to know specifically what we are doing that they aren’t. In addition to faculty, the department has arranged for advisory commission members, manufacturers, doctors and other industry professionals who are part of its winning team to present at the conference. This conference provides faculty with a wealth of information about the latest developments in the field -- information they bring back to their students at the College.”
In April 2008, the Department of Restorative Dentistry will host a major conference at the College in response to the request of DENTSPLY, the second largest dental supply company in the world. Then, in September 2008, it will host a reunion for all City Tech dental laboratory technology alumni during the International Education Congress at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenwich, Connecticut. The reunion will be fully funded by Nobel Biocare Corporation, the largest company of its kind in the industry.
“These kinds of interactions bring City Tech dental technology students together with top professionals from around the world,” says Professor Manos. “And it is these kinds of experiential learning opportunities that so greatly enrich the education they receive.”
01/30/08
