First class enters orientation at KCU College of Dental Medicine

Jul. 31—With the start of orientation at the Kansas City University College of Dental Medicine on Monday, a new era in education and health care started in Joplin and the Four-State Area.

The first class of the new dental school started learning about the new $65 million dental school, part of KCU's Farber-McIntire Campus in Joplin, the community they'll call home for the next four years.

The arrival of the class marks the culmination of years of planning and construction for the people charged with creating the school. With the addition, the campus as a whole will be accepting 80 new dental students and approximately 160 new medical students each year in Joplin. Medical students have been training at the school since 2017.

"It's like your first child," said Dr. Linda Niessen, dean of the dental college. "Your first child is the child that makes you a parent. The first class makes you a dental school. You don't have a dental school without the students. This first class will always be the first class, they will always be very special because they're the class that made Kansas City University College of Dental Medicine come to life."

Each class of future dentists will have 80 students, meaning in four years, when the college is running at full capacity, 320 students and the associated faculty will be working from the gleaming new addition to the Farber-McIntire Campus on St. John's Boulevard.

The inaugural class was seated Monday.

Stephanie Melot, 43, of Joplin, might not fit the mold of a university student seeking her doctorate in dental medicine, but she's ready to go to work.

Melot said she's always wanted to be a dentist, but raising a son, now 23 years old, was the priority.

"As a kid, I don't think I ever went to the dentist," Melot said. "I'm one of six children in our family. I have three older sisters and then a much younger brother and sister, and I was the only one with really crooked teeth. In fact, people in school called me fang and vampire, and yeah, it was mean. But my grandmother asked me if I would like to have braces, and she paid for them, and it changed my life. I got married, and we had a kid, and I put my career on hold to stay home with my son until he started kindergarten, but I knew I wanted to continue my education, and I decided that I want to go into dentistry."

Melot's options were limited. She didn't want to leave Joplin and force her son to change schools, so her husband supported the family while she went to Missouri Southern State University to pursue a career as a dental hygienist.

She graduated in 2011, then worked for several years to support the family while her husband pursued a master's degree in clinical psychology.

"So it's my turn again," Meloit said. "Whenever I saw that KCU was going to take up the reigns and start a dental school I was super excited. Whenever I realized what year they were going to be starting, I got my rear in gear and took classes."

Already, Melot and new student Amara Mbionwu, 30, from Bowie, Maryland, have gone hiking together at Wildcat Glades in Joplin, as they become part of the inaugural dental school class.

Mbionwu and student Brian Pholuichitr, 21, from Tampa, Florida, have been in Joplin since before the school's ribbon-cutting June 26 getting acclimated to life in Southwest Missouri and working on research projects at the school.

"I've been working with Dr. Errine Kennedy (assistant dean of curriculum and integrated learning) with the Thrive Project," Mbionwu said. "So I am working on a wellness framework which helps dental students cope with burnout and stress, as well as helping them cope and in times of crisis."

"I've been doing research with Dr. Sharon Gordon (associate dean of academic affairs and research)," Pholuichitr said. "We've been working with a program called Score One for Health, where medical students and the incoming dental students will go out to local elementary schools or do health screenings to understand the demographics as well as the necessity for screenings. And with that, I've just been gathering and analyzing the data, hopefully coming up to some conclusions and discussions that can be made about public health in this area."

Rudy Farber, of Neosho, and Dr. Larry McIntire, of Joplin, the namesakes for KCU's Joplin campus and the leaders of the 15-year effort to build the medical and dental schools, were on hand to see this first class of dental students welcomed, and they were impressed.

"They are very, very bright and very much in tune with their achievements with being part of the first dental class," McIntire said. "They were thrilled to be in the room."

"It's amazing talking to them, how smart they are, how empathetic they are and how enthusiastic they are," Farber said. "They're part of the first class. That's a distinction nobody can ever take away from them."