Attendees: School of Dentistry: Judith Buchanan, Edward Combe. Medical School: Linda Perkowski. School of Nursing: Linda Lindeke, Mary Rowan. College of Pharmacy: Kristin Janke, Michael Brown. College of Veterinary Medicine: Sandra Godden. BioMedical Library; James Beattie. Graduate School: Shirley Garner. Office of the Senior Vice President for Health Sciences: Barbara Brandt
Absent: Medical School: Susan Berry. School of Public Health: Kristin Anderson, Judith Garrard. College of Veterinary Medicine.
Guest: Christine Blue, RDH, MS; Director, Interim Director, Division of Dental Hygiene, School of Dentistry
Attachment: Power Point Presentation - Christine Blue
Barbara Brandt welcomed Council members and Christine Blue who was invited to present two proposals for master of science degrees in dental hygiene. The Academic Health Center Academic Council held its first meeting on April 6, 2007. During that meeting, Council members received a copy of two proposals for consideration. The two program proposals are: a master of science degree in dental hygiene with a major in education and a master of science degree with a major in management. The dental hygiene program director met with Barbara Brandt and received an Academic Health Center program template to prepare the proposals in fall 2006. The proposals had already received an initial review in the Graduate School and received feedback
The AHC Academic Council is a “work in progress” and is developing criteria for program review. In preparing for the May 3 meeting, the membership has added other suggested programmatic review elements for the future. The dental hygiene proposals will not be held accountable for these additions. Dr. Brandt reminded the group that it is advisory to Dr. Cerra, and recommendations will be sent to him after the next meeting scheduled for May 21.
In her presentation, Ms. Blue described a proliferation of dental hygiene schools through the country, including ten programs in Minnesota. The dental hygiene profession is moving to a new workforce model that will require the baccalaureate degree as the entry-level preparation expectation. There is no workforce shortage of dental hygienists, but there is a need to prepare dental hygienists for entry-level academic careers in Minnesota and the surrounding region. Graduate level programs are essential for the growth of the dental hygiene profession. Presently, there are eleven master-level programs in the United States.
Ms. Blue described the two programs, both having core courses, electives, and Plan A and Plan B requirements. The College of Education and Human Development and the Carlson School of Management faculty will be teaching in the education and management tracks respectively, and courses are considered critical to the delivery of both programs.
Dr. Garner asked a question about the nomenclature used in the program proposals, specifically the terminology “master of science”, “director of graduate studies”, and “graduate education”. These are Graduate School terminology. Barbara Brandt indicated that Dr. Cerra views these programs as professional programs and not housed in the Graduate School. Indeed, the terminology will need to be addressed.
Barbara Brandt opened the discussion to questions from the Council members:
Questions (Q)/Responses(R):
Q: Are there national standards or articulated competencies for advanced dental hygiene preparation?
R: The American Dental Education Association consortium of graduate education has discussed and developed competencies and education requirements. These were not included in the proposal. On behalf of the Academic Council, Barbara Brandt requested that as a follow-up, Ms. Blue forward this documentation distribution to the Council members.
Q: What faculty resources will be available for this program?
R: There are five full-time faculty members in the dental hygiene and the School of Dentistry's faculty members also teach in the program. Other courses will be taught by the College of Education and Human Development and the Carlson School of Management.
Q: What are the credit requirements of these programs? The text on page 11 does not match other descriptions in the proposal; the credit requirements are unclear.
R: 36 credit hours for the management program; 35 for the education program
Q: What is MnSCU's viewpoint of this proposal?
R: MnSCU is looking for affiliation agreements from the University. The MnSCU schools need masters-prepared faculty for their programs.
Q: What will happen with the baccalaureate program with the increase in demand from this proposal?
R: The baccalaureate program has decreased the number of students to prepare for this program. The master programs will admit approximately six students each. The addition of this program will increase demand on faculty, and to handle the increased workload, the proposed program will move toward on-line courses, teleconferencing, etc. in the future. The College of Education and Human Development and the Carlson School of Management will be teaching portions of the core curriculum.
Q: Have admission criteria been developed with the idea that it would be beneficial to require applicants to have experience in other disciplines?
R: Other disciplines will be brought in by including the College of Education and Human Development and the Carlson School of Management.
Q: Applicants need to have specific clinical experience prior to acceptance into the program, and if this program accepts undergraduates immediately after graduation, how will you do this? (Clarification: Concern was expressed regarding the practice currency of faculty who have only taught in academic programs and are not practitioners.)
R: Dr. Buchanan and Ms. Blue explained that by accreditation dentistry and dental hygiene programs have a significant amount of practice and clinical involvement. Faculty members who teach in these programs are continuously involved in clinical practice. The teaching practicum will be hands-on experience in the clinic.
Q: Is there an accrediting body for this level?
R: No, unlike the baccalaureate program, there is no accreditation of masters programs at this time.
Comment: Dr. Brandt made an observation that the Adult Education course is quite obsolete. The most recent references tended to be nearly fifteen years old. The field has advanced considerably since the early 1990s. Dr. Lindeke suggested that the dental hygiene faculty might consider using an excellent course, Curriculum and Instruction 5221 in the College of Education and Human Development. This course is included in the School of Nursing program.
Q: What is the dental hygiene core courses and contact that are taken by both tracks? What are separate?
Strategies for Teaching Adults (AdED 5101)
Research Methods in Health Sciences, Biostatistics (DH 5XXX)
Biostatistical Methods I (PubH 6414)
Administrative Leadership and Professional Development (DH 5XXX)
Q: How was the class size determined?
R: The class size was determined by the faculty resources available.
Q: Is there interest for developing this program?
R: Yes, currently there are enough people interested to fill classes for the next three years. The program will not be made available to those interested until it has been approved by the Board of Regents.
Q: What are the admission criteria?
R: 3.0 grade point average and 3 letters of reference are required for both tracks. Students applying for the management track are required to take the GRE. The Carlson School of Management requires the GRE. The GRE will not be required for the education track.
Concern was raised that there are differential requirements for the two programs, particularly since students in both will be taking the same courses, and students may wish to switch from one to the other.
Q: Does the program expect to admit international students?
R: It is not anticipated that the program will be looking at international students. Currently there are not any strong international dental hygiene undergraduate programs.
Q: With the education track, what are the practice prerequisites? What experience are the applicants expected to have? Where are the practice benchmarks to further develop advanced skills? It may put the program in a unique leadership role nationally.
R: The undergraduate program gives students a tremendous amount of clinical practice.
Q: Concern was expressed that students will select the management program and want to “follow the money” rather than becoming educators.
R: The salary differential between dental hygienists and faculty members is minimal. There are many dental hygienists who want to become educators.
Q: Will there be periodic evaluations on the program? The proposal was light on programmatic evaluation and needs more than course evaluations. There is reference to the Graduate School formal review; however, this program is not in the Graduate School. What are the baseline data, and what are the benchmarks for the program? What will you consider to be a successful program?
R: There is a plan to have a formal review in the future.
Barbara Brandt thanked Christine Blue for presenting to the Council.
Based upon the Council's observations given to Christine Blue, will we expect to see a revised proposal; specifically changing the terminology from graduate school to professional? Barbara Brandt stated that the Council needs to determine what it would like.
The issue was raised about the nomenclature used in the proposal. Specifically the terms “master of science” degree, Director of Graduate Studies. This should be a “Master of Dental Hygiene” with tracks in management and education.
The group noted that this could be very exciting and the University of Minnesota certainly could take leadership nationally in this area. However, the structure of the program is concerning whether the dental hygiene faculty are the leaders for the decisions regarding the program. Is the program selling itself out to another discipline with using the Carlson School of Management? This is a very fine line - is this a management program with dental hygiene or is this truly a dental hygiene program?
Admissions standards are an issue. Students may want to change their major once they have been admitted. This is not a good `marriage.'
Is this a practice/professional degree? What are the graduates expected to do? The terminology and expectations are confusing; for example, “thesis” compared to “practicum”. The Carlson School has a great amount of control over this program.
What is the governance of both degrees from the dental hygiene discipline?
Clarification needs to be made on who will be the faculty and how the program will be constituted. The proposal is unclear, and the discussion didn't illuminate. The Council didn't see governance mentioned and assumes the governance would come from the School of Dentistry and its faculty. However, the presentation communicated abdication of decisions about the program to the Carlson School. For example, determining admissions requirements into the program.
There should be an element of advanced practice built into the admissions requirements, particularly this program is intended to advance the practice of dental hygiene. Dr. Buchanan stated that advanced practice is controversial within the dental profession. The American Dental Association does not support it, and at this time, the Dean of the School of Dentistry would not support this. This is not the direction the program can go in at this time.
Based upon this proposal, what is the accountability / commitment to exceptional practice in dental hygiene? For example, advanced physiology or is there some other enhancement to dental hygiene specifically. We aren't seeing documentation on how the students will obtain competency in practice.
There is a need for this program, but are there that many people interested in this program? For example, the needs assessment documentation only included 29 respondents - only 8% of those indicated interest in a master degree program. Judith Buchanan said that there is incentive for obtaining an advanced degree due to the uncertainty of the dental hygienists employment options. Seeking an advanced degree would give them more job security and the ability to develop tenure. This job security is not easy to find for dental hygienists.
Dr. Brandt asked: Does the Council want to ask Ms. Blue back at its next meeting on May 21? Feedback can be provided to the program director for a response. Council members do not feel this proposal is ready to be forwarded and that a great deal of work is needed on it.
The general discussion focused on how the Council should be involved in the development of program proposals. New proposals should come to the committee early for feedback, and there is a collective wisdom as it is applied to professional practices.
An intermediate step might need to be considered in preparing a program proposal.
The group asked: Are there resources in place to help faculty develop proposals? The Graduate School has three staff members devoted to assisting faculty develop proposals: curriculum, faculty governance, and academic requirements. Dr. Brandt indicated that she is the only person available to assist in this process and that she met with Ms. Blue to provide guidance on the proposal.
Notes will be prepared from this meeting and distributed via email to Council members for feedback and consensus.
The criteria for review of new academic program proposals will also be emailed to members for their review. At the next Council meeting, members will develop consensus on these criteria.
The Council will continue to work towards developing standards.
Meeting adjourned at 4:45 p.m.
