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Empower the next generation of dental hygiene leaders by strengthening your role as a student organization advisor. This course provides dental hygiene educators with practical tools to establish, support, and sustain student professional associations like SADHA. Through an exploration of leadership development, advocacy, community engagement, and faculty facilitation, participants will learn how to inspire student involvement and promote a culture of professionalism and service. The course also fosters a collaborative network of advisors committed to mentoring and leadership growth at the institutional, state, and national levels.

Objectives:

1. Recognize the impact of student professional associations on leadership, advocacy, and career development.
2. Understand the foundational steps to establish and maintain a student professional organization.
3. Identify key characteristics and responsibilities of an effective faculty facilitator.
4. Promote student leadership through communication, community engagement, and professional partnerships.
5. Support collaboration and networking among student organization advisors at local, state, and national levels.

Educators Platform Masterminds are dynamic two-hour virtual sessions building on each other’s challenges, ideas and successes in the presence of a content expert. Mastermind sessions are thoughtfully facilitated to create an environment for like-minded colleagues to share and learn from one another with the goal of collective professional growth and development. Sessions are uniquely tailored to the needs of participants. Those attending will have the opportunity to create strong connections with other participants to last a whole career.

Clinical Assistant Professor Ashley J. Hobbs, MS, BSDH, RDH, ECP II has been teaching at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Dentistry since 2021 in the Division of Dental Hygiene. Professor Hobbs provides course directorship in the dental hygiene curriculum through Local Anesthesia and Pain Control, Senior Seminar, and Introduction to the Preventive Practice of Dental Hygiene courses. She also serves as the Junior Clinic Coordinator and is currently the Chair-Elect for the ADEA Dental Hygiene Clinic Coordinators Special Interest Group.

A passion of Ashley’s is giving back to the community. She has attended over 50 dental missions reaching national and international populations. In her free time, she has built two non-profit programs to provide preventive services to underserved populations: Elder Smiles and The Gladstone Sealant Outreach Program. Additionally, Ashley is a Clinical Director for the Special Olympics Special Smiles program, providing dental screenings and care for athletes with intellectual disabilities. Ashley was the recent recipient of the UMKC Faculty of the Year Award in 2024 as well as the UMKC Dental Hygiene Alumni Association Outstanding Service Award in 2024. In 2025, Ashley was honored with the Lecturer of the Year Award.

Her research interests include faculty calibration, clinical instruction, and teaching paradigms. She presented on the development of school-based sealant programs at a continuing education course at her professional association at the state level, spoken nationally at the American Dental Education Association 2022 conference on innovative teaching paradigms, and at the American Dental Hygienists' Association 2022 conference on her qualitative research on student perceptions of a school-based sealant program.

Attendees of Educators Platform Mastermind sessions will earn 2 CEU in Educational Methods.