Nearly Eight Decades of Excellence: City Tech’s Dental Hygiene Program and Its Commitment to Community Oral Health

Since its founding in 1947, the New York City College of Technology (City Tech) Dental Hygiene program has been a leader in high-quality dental hygiene education, professional development and the integration of innovative dental technologies and patient care modalities. For nearly eight decades, the program has served a diverse and motivated student population, fostering excellence through the expertise of a dedicated faculty that includes registered dental hygienists and dentists with clinical backgrounds spanning pediatric dentistry, oral pathology, periodontics and implantology.

Over the years, the program expanded by adding an evening program in 2011 and relocated to the state-of-the-art Academic Building in 2018. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic challenged dental hygiene programs nationwide, including City Tech’s program. When traditional in-person instruction was disrupted, essential patient care experiences had to be reimagined to ensure students continued to develop clinical competence. While the pandemic presented unprecedented obstacles, it also highlighted the resilience, adaptability and collective strength of the program.

City Tech’s Dental Hygiene program was among the first to return to campus and resume patient care in fall 2020, just six months after the pandemic had begun. Ensuring the safety of students, patients, faculty and staff became the highest priority, prompting the rapid implementation of enhanced infection control measures, including extraoral suction units, face shields, scrub caps and the temporary elimination of aerosol-generating procedures. Despite these challenges, the program maintained rigorous educational standards, and by fall 2022, student enrollment had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Although the pandemic briefly paused many community outreach initiatives, it also catalyzed the expansion of one of the program’s most impactful efforts: Give Kids A Smile^® (GKAS). GKAS is a national volunteer initiative dedicated to addressing the widespread prevalence of untreated oral disease among children by providing free educational, preventive and restorative dental services. In partnership with the American Dental Association and Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals, the City Tech Dental Hygiene Patient Care Clinic delivers oral health education, nutritional counseling and preventive dental services to children ages four to 17 at no cost to their families during GKAS events. At these events, the clinic also serves as a collaborative hub, partnering with the Queens College Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders and City Tech’s Vision Care Technology program to provide complimentary vision and hearing screenings.

The expansion of this outreach was most evident during the 2025 GKAS event. In addition to services provided at City Tech that included dental screenings, radiographs, engine polishing and fluoride treatments, dental hygiene students traveled off campus to deliver oral health education at P79M Horan School in Manhattan, serving alternately assessed middle and high school students with varying abilities, and at Eden II School in Staten Island, which serves children and young adults ages five to 21 with autism and related developmental disabilities.

City Tech dental hygiene students presented engaging educational materials, including My First Dental Visit, a step-by-step presentation developed by students under faculty guidance to help familiarize children with a dental experience. Students also demonstrated adaptive oral hygiene tools and techniques tailored to children and teenagers with special needs, using creative and interactive methods such as jump ropes to model flossing, along with toothbrushes, books and toys to support learning.

Collectively, City Tech Dental Hygiene students provided care to more than 100 children and teenagers during the 2025 GKAS initiative. Through such initiatives, the program remains dedicated to its mission to help bridge the gaps in access to oral health education and care, while strengthening partnerships with the American Dental Association, Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals, Queens College, City Tech’s Vision Care Technology program, P79M Horan School and Eden II School.

Nearly 80 years after its founding, City Tech’s Dental Hygiene program continues to thrive. The program graduates approximately 70 students annually who go on to successful careers in dental hygiene and is supported by the dedicated faculty and staff of over 50 dental professionals. Having successfully completed its most recent Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) reaccreditation in 2025, the program looks forward to continued excellence in education, service and community engagement.

Courtesy of New York City College of Technology Dental Hygiene