Male Dental Hygiene Grads “Couldn’t Have Done it Without Each Other”

June 5, 2025

This year, for perhaps only the second time in the program’s history, the college’s Dental Hygiene graduating class includes three male students.

That might not seem like earth-shattering news, but three out of 30 graduates in the Class of 2025 is about triple the normal contingent of graduating men.

For a profession that boasts good pay and often flexible work hours, dental hygiene has traditionally been viewed as a career path for women, but perhaps that’s shifting. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t.

Greg Kirkman, Kymanni Stevens and Shane White each came to the degree program with different backgrounds and motivations, but over the past two years, they’ve built a friendship that’s helped them weather the ups and downs of clinic and classroom. They couldn’t have gotten through it without each other, they said.

“I feel like if I was in this program by myself, I don't know how far I would have gotten, honestly. I would have been sitting there sulking in the locker room by myself if I don't have anybody to vent to,” White said with a laugh.

All three graduates said they didn’t anticipate how intense and rigorous the Dental Hygiene program was going to be, right from the first semester to the last. From dealing with patient “no-shows” to the continual pressure of weekly exams, they said the program sets a high bar for achievement.

“I had been out of school for 20 years and so I really didn’t know what to expect,” Kirkman said. “In this program, you will be challenged, and you have to show up to do the work and keep up with the work. This isn’t a program you can play catch-up in. But really, the faculty are there to give you the tools you need to be successful. It’s up to the students to meet that challenge.”

White graduated from SUNY Cortland with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry in 2018 but said he’d been looking for something that could meld his interest in helping people with his background in science.

“I didn’t want to work in a lab for the rest of my life and, you know, I guess I’m just a people person. I want to be interacting with people,” he said. “I didn’t really want to go back four or five years for dental school, so I thought, let’s do hygiene. I could do this and make people feel better about their smiles. Every day, you’re helping someone out.”

For Stevens, it was a few conversations with his own dental hygienist that led him toward the program and profession. “As I high school student, I was always good in school but I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he said, “so my hygienist was telling me about the benefits, and how her husband, who was in construction, had to retire because his body couldn’t physically do that work. That’s part of how I ended up on this route.”

Kirkman’s entrée into the profession was a little more personal - his wife graduated from the Dental Hygiene program in 2020. “She decided she wanted to go back to school and take this path, and she was definitely my advocate and had nothing but good things to say about the program when we talked about me doing this as well.”

With a job in restaurant management, he said he was looking for something that could take him away from weekend shifts and generally unpredictable hours. And with two young sons at home, the opportunity to simply be around for Little League games and school events was a strong pull to shift professions. “I was at a point in my life where if I’m going to go back to school, now is the time to do it,” he said. “(My wife) was my pillar of support, and I couldn’t have done it without her.”

As the three graduate from the program and head out into the profession, they hope the friendship that they’ve built over the past two years will continue.

“I feel like I have lifelong friends, and I didn't come here with that plan at all,” said White.

“If I was having a bad day, or a long clinic day, they are there to pick you up and tell you not to carry into the next day,” Stevens said.

“I'm so fortunate. I think we all feel the same, but the chemistry with us from day one was there. On our worst days, we kept each other grounded, kept each other focused,” added Kirkman.