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[Music] Hello Blue Jays and welcome to the nest stories about life after Manor College. I am your host Kelly Peiffer vice president of marketing communications at Manor College and this is the best part of my day. My hope is that this podcast will encourage, inform, and inspire you, making you feel like at Manor College you belong here always. Before we get to today's guest, it is time for a segment of the show I like to call Did You Know? Today is a did you know segment that I really enjoyed researching and learning

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um because it is about one of our most popular programs here on campus, our dental hygiene program. So did you know that Manor College dental hygiene program went through its planning accreditation and facility construction in 1995 and then the very first class started in the fall of 1996 almost 29 years ago. A real strength of the program has that it's always had really low faculty to student ratio. So the number of faculty maybe are one or two and then the class is 12 or 14. The program is ranked in the top

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five dental hygiene program in Pennsylvania. Currently we are ranked as the number three spot of the best dental hygiene programs in Pennsylvania. One of our main goals of the program since the 96 has always been for graduates to pass their dental hygiene board exams within six months of graduating. So currently the dental hygiene program has a 100% pass rate of all three board exams in that six-month time frame. So it's a really good program. um prep really prepares students for success in getting

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their boards and then moving on to become a dental hygiene. Something that I really love and that's unique to Manor about the dental hygiene program is that the dental hygiene program is kind of under the umbrella of the dental health center. And the dental health center is a full on operating health clinic um that benefits the community. So, it's a great benefit that our program provides low cost and affordable preventative pre-dental procedures for the patients of the dental health center as well as

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people in the local community. Anyone can walk in and get a teeth cleaning for $20. They take insurance if you need x-rays and other things. They do all sorts of work. And um it's neat because you can kind of give back to students in that way who need to work on so many different types um to complete their hours of clinical work. It might take a little bit longer than you going to a non college related health center because you have students working on you. They're being overseen by a licensed dentist and an instructor. But

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for 20 bucks, you really can't can't beat the price. So today we have a truly inspiring guest hailing from Feasterville Trevose, a proud Neshaminy High School alum. Our guest journey is a testament to perseverance and a passion for helping others. She kicked off her higher education with an associates degree in dental hygiene from Manor College, graduating in 2002. A true scholar, her path included stops at the Community College of Philadelphia and even took a class at Bucks County before she found her stride at Manor

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College and proving that it's never too late to pursue your dreams. She went on to earn her bachelor's degree from Waldorf University in 2019 and is currently pursuing a master's degree as well. While at Manor, she was deeply involved in a volunteer club showcasing an early commitment to service. This dedication shines through in her current roles as a dental program coordinator at the Anne Silverman Community Health Clinic and a clinical instructor at Montco County Community College where she's shaping the next generation of

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dental professionals. Our guest is a proud first generation college graduate breaking barriers and paving the way for future generations in her family. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Manor College alumni and guest Crystal Esmond. Hi, Crystal. Hi. Wow, that was quite an introduction. Well, you have quite the story and we want to make sure we give it credit. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks. How are you? Yeah, good. Happy to be here. Like I was telling you a little bit when we talked in the pre-show. Um, I'm so

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excited to finally have someone from our dental program on the show. We just haven't had one yet. So, I felt like it was a little bit overdue. So, I'm happy that we're doing this. Yeah. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad I get to be the one to represent. So, yes. Be the trailblazer. Yeah. For more dental hygiene to come on. So, kind of start me off by why did you choose Manor and how did you find out about Manor? So, uh in my journey as a late teenager wanting to be a dental hygienist, I kind

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of had to look and see what colleges offered the program and there's not that many. you know, it was pretty select um a select few. So, I went and visited each of the campuses that were the closest by um me and I honestly I fell in love with Manor's campus. I really liked a small community feel as where Montgomery was much bigger. Um Philadelphia Community College, their campus was much bigger, a little bit more intimidating and I really liked that small family feel of Manor's campus. So, that was it for me.

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Oh, that's great. Yeah, I think I think the small campus feel still to this day remains as one of our top reasons why students choose Manor. We actually just ran a graduation survey just a few weeks ago because our our commencement is next week and we want to get feedback from those who are graduating and the number one reason why they chose Manor was small classes, small um pro, you know, small program sizes and that really resonates with people. So, I'm glad to hear that that resonated with you, you

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know, 20 20 years ago. So, talk to us. What was the program like and what was kind of your college experience like at Manor? Um, the program was, like I said, small. We started out with 15 students, so it was very small. Your professors, they knew us by name. They knew you really got to know your professors. They really got to know you. Um, the program's intense. You know, you're not there. You're if you are in that program, you are career bound. You are not there to have fun in college. You are there to earn a to learn a skill,

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earn an education, and really get out there and work. So, it was an intense program, but it definitely prepared me for what I was going into. So, it was a great program, but it's intense. So, it's not the program that you're going into if you want to go to college, party, and have fun. you're there to learn a skill and be prepared. So, yeah, I I definitely I definitely think that's still absolutely true today. Um I think the way you phrased it that like it's a great program, but it's intense is really a

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good description of it. Um it's definitely career focused and you need to have that mindset of like I'm going to get in here. I'm going to work really hard and kind of like grind it out for two years, but then I'll be prepared to have a career. Um, which is which is kind of amazing if you think about it. Like it's not not a lot of career programs are like that or even just, you know, if you study and not to knock on other programs, but if you study like business or um, you know, other degrees, it usually takes longer than two years

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and they're not as like direct. Mhm. Dental hygiene is like direct like you are very um niche you know in that sense. So you you talked about how like the professors really knew you and you knew them and um were there any people in the program professors or or other um instructors that you can remember were like really kind of like a game changer for you and kind of gave you that attention and like level of care. I don't know if I would say there was a spec I mean they were all good and they all had their strengths. You know, Donna

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Easterbrooks going back to years ago. Um I know she's no longer with the program, but she was very intense and almost a little bit scary. I think we were all a little afraid of her, but in clinic she re in clinic and in the classroom, you learned you learned from her. Sometimes, you know, the scarier instructors, the ones that seem the most intense are the ones that you learn the most from. Um, Dr. Caldwell, which I know she's still there, she was awesome. She was I remember her being awesome 20 years ago,

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and when I talk to students now that are graduating from Manor, they're still saying the same things how great she is. She's very encouraging. She's very uplifting. She wants you to succeed. Um, Mrs. Cups, I can't even remember her first name. I know she's no longer with the program, but she was awesome, too. Just a good They were all just really good. You know, you could I remember in clinic, you could ask for help easily. Like, you weren't afraid to ask for help. You could be like, I you know, I'm

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working on this. I can't figure this out. Can you help me? What am I missing? So, it was just a really good encouraging place to grow and to learn the skills that we needed. So, they were good. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I remember Don at East Brooks and obviously Vicky Caldwell is still here um as an instructor, but that that's great to hear that they were encouraging, maybe a little scary and intimidating, but that's also kind of good sometimes, you know, to kind of Yeah. Um not everyone. It can't all be

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warm and fuzzy, right? Sometimes you need someone that's going to bring you down to reality and be like, "This is what we need to do. This is what you this is where the expectation is and you need to meet it." So yeah, oftentimes those are the professors when you reflect back that actually, you know, maybe taught you the most because of that kind of experience. Yeah. So um tell us why like how did you know you wanted to be a dental hygienist and like where does that passion of yours come from and do you really love teeth that

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much or is there like a story behind it? So there is a story behind it and when I tell that story people are always like wait what? So, I grew up going to a pediatric dentist and I hated going to the dentist. I used to cry every time before I went. I would beg my mom not to take me. I asked her to take me to a different dentist. It was very much run like a factory. Like they just pumped kids in and pumped kids out. I remember the hygienists and the assistants were not exactly the nicest or um yeah, it

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was just a a not great experience growing up. So, as I got a little bit older, as I was like later in my childhood, like 10, 11, 12, I was like, I'm going to be a dentist and I'm going to get all the tools and do my own dentistry so I never have to go to the to the dentist again. And uh, you know, obviously the reality sets in of that doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to be a dentist to yourself. Yes. So, I started um looking into different career paths and dental hygiene came up. It was a great um career for women. it had a

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lot of flexibility. You made decent money to survive. You know, my I came from a divorced family, so I felt like if I should end up as a single parent, you know, I'll be able to support my kids. And um so I thought I was going to work in pediatric dentistry. I thought, I'm going to make this an amazing experience for every kid that I see. They're going to love coming to the dentist. And I did a pediatric rotation while I was in the program. And I was like, "This is not for me." Like I'm like, "This really takes a

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special person to work with children, you know, 10 hours a day." And I thought, "It's not me." Um, but that did not stop my love. I still love dentistry. I loved being able to work with adults that were nervous. I feel like it kind of made me a better hygienist because I understood where they were coming from. A lot of people that go into dentistry, I think they go in because they loved going to the dentist. They loved their orthodontist. They love they had such a great experience. So when they see nervous

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patients, it's like what is their problem? It's not a big deal. As where I felt like, I get it. I know the anxiety that you're feeling. We're going to get through this together and you're going to you're going to turn around and you're going to like this. So that was kind of how I ended up getting into it. Oh wow. That that is a great story. And I I love how you're right. Oftentimes when I talk to even our students like why are you in this program? It's because like they love teeth. They love

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cleaning that clean feeling of teeth and and they love the dentist. You rarely hear someone who had kind of the opposite. But for you that means you have such great empathy with probably the majority of people that they feel about the dentist. So that's such a like a leg up on you and I think a really unique factor. Um, and I I don't know how people work in I actually just yesterday I took my my middle child, she's four, to her pediatric dentist and they have, you know, um, fish fish on the ceilings and the big submarine, you

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know, I mean, all those things. So, it looks really fun and I have to say the dentists there are fantastic. Um, so far we're still pretty pretty new in going to the practice, but and she likes it, you know, but I can certainly it would be so hard I know from a parent point of view to get your kid to go to the dentist if they didn't like it. So I'm very grateful so far so good, but um I can see how that would be really hard to like you got to you got to go. So, um, that's so cool that you were

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motivated to to kind of pursue this as a career because of something that you had as a kind of a negative experience and you wanted to change it for good. What great like service-minded heart that you were coming from. So, kind of take us through um your career path and currently I know you're currently at like two different places. Can you just kind of explain what those are and kind of um kind of what your career looks like now? So, I started out in private practice. I worked at one office after I graduated.

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I lasted there about 10 months. Um, they were kind of just getting started into a sales driven model, which was just not for me. And I switched to a private another private practice where I stayed for 21 years. It was a great office. I loved it there. Um, I worked with great women. I worked for a great doctor. And after 21 years, I was ready for a change. It's a long time in one place. And I thought, you know what? I want to work in public health. So, I ended up getting this great position at the

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Insman Community Health Clinic. We're a free clinic. We provide free dental services. There's medical services, mental health services, social services. It's just an incredible community and it totally revived my love for dentistry. I mean, the patients are just so thankful and we just get to do such great stuff for the families that come. Um, my other role is I work as a clinical instructor in Montgomery County Community College program. I started that last year and that role I mean I could not love a

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position more than I love that. It's just it's so great being able to work with adult students that are there because they want to learn. They're there because they picked to learn. And I get to do the fun part. I'm in the clinic with them. So, I'm teaching them their instrumentation and all the day-to-day stuff that you do, you know, in clinic. And I I just love it. I love working with the students. It's so cool getting to see them kind of grow. You know, they come in, they don't know anything how to hold their mirror or any

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of their instruments, and by the end of the year, they've seen patients, and they've really gone through the whole process, and it it's awesome. Oh, that's so cool. I love how um obviously like you stayed at the same practice for 21 years. I mean, that's such a great testament to a lot of really good things. But then you were like, you know what, I want to work in public health and I'm going to make this change and um what a brave and confident move on on your behalf from a career point, but I'm

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so glad that it's kind of paying it forward um um for you and kind of like fulfillment of that. That's really cool. And I know that you currently are serving on our dental advisory board here at the college, right? what how did that come about and kind of what made you want to give back in that way and thank you so much for giving back. Yeah. So, it was it's kind of interesting what a small world it is. Stephanie Parker, who is now the director of the hygiene program there, I worked with her at Montgomery County

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Community College and we didn't work in the same class, but I had met her a couple times here and there. And when Virginia Saunders had retired, I was talking to someone else and um they said, "Oh, the woman that's taking that position at Steph Parker and I went," I know Stephanie Parker. I said, "This is great." Because actually at the clinic we've been having Manor students come and do rotations at the clinic, which has just been incredible. And Stephanie had reached out one day and said, "Hey,

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any chance you'd have an interest in in being a part of our board?" And absolutely put me on. So that was how that came about and I'm glad to do it. I'm excited. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. I always love hearing stories when like the manor world and circle like kind of comes back around, you know? I feel I don't know. I always feel like especially in Montgomery County like everyone kind of knows someone connected to Manor at some point. Um especially probably in the dental world. I imagine that's that's

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pretty common. Yeah. like walk into a practice and like someone some there either work went to Manor or had someone go to you know what I mean? Um so that's really cool and and tell us about I know you're pursuing a master's degree. Tell us kind of like why are you pursuing that and kind of what are you pursuing? Uh so I'm working on a master's in public health and it's interesting. I always thought I'll go back for my masters when my kids are done college because I thought I can't spend the money on myself. I have to, you know,

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they're my daughter's turning 18 this actually next week and my son's 14 and I'm like, okay, nothing for me. When they're done college, I'm going back for my masters, right? The true mother the true mother me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me mentality right there, it sounds like. Well, yeah, but I took it back because now I'm in school for myself. So good. Good for you. Good for you. So yeah, um last year once I

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started taking the teaching position at Montgomery and I really fell in love with it and I thought, you know what, I might want to do this full-time. I, you know, I'm loving this so much. And I know full-time teaching positions, you need a master's degree. I knew I was always going to do it. I wasn't 100% sure, do I want to go the education route? Do I want to go the public health route? And um over the last spring, last spring, I started thinking, I thought, you know what? what am I waiting for? I

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can do this now, you know, let let's just jump in. We'll start it now. We'll see. I'll take one class. Let's see where it goes. So, you know, I started looking at different schools and I had to start thinking, okay, where do I want to focus? And I decided on public health and then it was last summer that I took the position in public health. So, it just kind of all came together and I liked the public health curriculum. I love learning about disease. I love learning about disaster preparedness.

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I'm like a doomsdayer. I I don't quite have a basement full of water and food supplies, but that stuff, it kind of fascinates me. And I love learning about prevention and all of that is wrapped up in a public health degree. So, I I feel like I I picked the right degree and I'm about halfway through. So, it's been going good. Well, congrats. That's awesome. And how has it been being back in college? You know, is it different? Is it kind of feels the same in some ways? Kind of how

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if you can compare and contrast. So, it's funny because I finished my bachelors as an adult with young children. It doesn't feel much different than that because I had done that part as an adult. Um, so yeah, it it's it's definitely I will say this, it is not as difficult as the hygiene program because that and the reason I say that is because the hygiene program has clinical hours and those clinical hours, it's a lot. I mean, at one point, I think you're up to 30 hours. So, you're doing 30 hours of clinical and

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your class time. So, it's, you know, thankfully it's not like that. Um, but it's college, so it's still stressful. There's still assignments. There's big things. It's you got to be good with time management, so you know, sometimes I am up at two trying to finish stuff off and get it submitted. But make it work. You're back. You're a college student again. That's Yeah. Well, that's awesome. You know, Crystal, in hearing hearing your story and hearing kind of kind of where you started, but then also where you are are

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today. I'm I'm often I'm well I'm so impressed. I'm often really impressed with our alumni and just how they have such a heart to help people and I feel like a lot of our alumni really do and they end up working in these careers where you really are service focused. But um something that I I particularly was thinking about you was that you know in our mission we have a fairly long mission statement but there's there kind of like two things that I like to kind of focus in our mission. One is that like Manor College

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we believe that graduation begins a chapter of lifelong learning and we want to instill in our students that Manor is not the end of of your learning journey. we want our students to continue to learn whether it's Coned, whether it's um master's degrees and so on. So hearing that, you know, you've gone on and you've gotten a bachelor's, you've gotten you're getting a master's, um really is a testament, I think, to kind of just align with our mission. And then the last part of our mission talks about

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how um matter graduates are prepared to serve society effectively and compassionately. And just hearing your story, I'm like spot on. Crystal is doing that. Um, you're serving society obviously very compassionately by your work in public health and your desire. You're giving back by being a member of our board and that's helping our own program grow and thrive. Um, and you're doing it effectively because you're doing it all. Um, so just thank you so much for being such a great like walking um, proof that like a degree at Manor

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College does set you up for these things in life. And that's frankly what we want to do. So, it's really inspiring to see and I hope that people listening um feel the same. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, Matter was a great place a great place to start. It really was. Yeah, that that's great. It's great to hear. So, kind of my last question for you is what advice would you give to current Manor students whether they're in dental or or not um to kind of encourage them in in their own college experience and college

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journey. Um, I guess the advice I would have is keep going. No class, you know, even if you're forced to take a class that you don't think it, you know, like dental hygienist, you have to take a course in philosophy or at least I did. You know, there's classes that I Yeah. that aren't quite related to your major, you're still going to learn stuff from that. And just keep going. Even when you have that instructor that you're like, I swear this instructor hates me. They just keep, you know, killing everything

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that I turn in. You're there to learn. They're there to help you learn. and they're there to help you grow. So, just keep going. Listen, be open-minded. Take the uh the uh advice that they're giving you and don't be so quick to say, "No, that's not, you know, no, they're wrong." Like, listen, listen to what they say. They've got some life experience and just keep working hard, keep going, and you can do it. You can definitely do it. Yeah. Well, that that's great. It's great advice and very timely. our um our class of 2025

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graduation is next Thursday. So, there's a lot of excitement and celebration happening for our class, but also whenever students kind of leave the nest, um you know, it's scary, too. They're going out into the real world. They're not going to have kind of the safety boundaries that we kind of have here as a college student. So, it's good advice like you can do it and keep going. Um, thank you Crystal so much for joining us today. It's been a true pleasure to talk to you and I hope that our listeners were inspired and

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encouraged by you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kelly. It was nice. It was nice meeting you. Nice to talk to you. Thank you for tuning in with us today. If you like what you heard, listen and subscribe on Spotify or YouTube. Stay up to date with all new episodes by following Manor College on Instagram, Manor College. And that's a wrap on another episode of The Nest. Stories about life after Manor College. Remember, Blue Jays, you belong here always. [Music]