A ceremony was held on Thursday for Martin Community College’s latest graduates of

MCC’s dental assisting program. This group came to MCC from eight counties. Three of the graduates, Cota-Lopez, Van Staalduinen and Horne are from Beaufort County. Cline and Smith reside in Pitt County, while Fearing and Thomas hale from Pasquotank County. McNair and McDonald live in Washington County. Edgecombe County was represented by Beaufort, and Young came in from Chowan County. Perry from Aulander, and Sasser from Jamesville, are the two graduates who reside in the MCC service area of Bertie and Martin counties.

According to the program’s director and instructor Shelby Brothers, “So far, seven of the 13 graduates — Van Staalduinen, McDonald, Smith, Cline, Perry, Beaufort and Cota-Lopez —have officially been hired. Many of these graduates have been hired by one of the dental practices where they did their clinical rotation. Horne will be attending ECU in the fall to take classes towards applying to the ECU School of Dentistry.”

MCC is the only community college in northeastern North Carolina that offers a dental assisting program. The program’s quality and proven record in connecting graduates to jobs has made it a popular and competitive course of study at MCC. Only 15 students are selected each year to begin the program. In hopes of growing the program, MCC made significant improvements to the dental assisting classrooms and labs in 2016 and is in the process of hiring an additional instructor. If you are interested in learning more about MCC’s dental assisting program, visit the MCC web site at www.martincc.edu or contact Shelby Brothers at 252-789-0239 or via email at shelby.brothers@martincc.edu.