Evolving curricula meet the shifting needs of the higher education, employment market

By Tom Snee | Office of Strategic Communication | 5/13/2019

Creating a dental mold is always a time-consuming and uncomfortable process for patients who need a cap or a crown, and the gooey substance used to make the impression tastes bad.

“Patients don’t like the impression material,” Erica Teixeira, associate professor of operative dentistry in the University of Iowa College of Dentistry, says of the alginate used to create the mold.

But digital technology has come to the rescue. Now, dentists can use a scanner to create a three-dimensional image of a patient’s teeth, which then is used to create the onlay, crown, dentures, or other needed restoration using a milling machine. Patients prefer the process, as shooting the image takes only 10 or 20 seconds. There’s also no mess or bad taste, so more and more dentists are using the tool in their practices.

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Colleges at the University of Iowa are adapting programming and curriculum to meet the demands of students and potential employers. These changes help the university provide students with a quality education that translates to high job and graduate school placement rates within six months of graduation. The UI’s overall placement rate is 95%, which is among the highest in the country.

The breakdown by college:
Tippie College of Business: 97%
Dentistry: 100%
Education: 92%
Engineering: 94%
Graduate College: 77%
Law: 98%
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: 94%
Carver College of Medicine: 100%
Nursing: 99%
Pharmacy: 97%
Public Health: 98%

What’s Next
As for the future, the scientific, technological, and market forces that have changed university curricula in so many ways will only accelerate, as will changing workplace and student demand.

The College of Nursing, for instance, is wrapping up an $11.8 million renovation of its building that includes state-of-the-art medical and classroom teaching upgrades that can be readily adapted to accommodate future changes. The college also continually reviews its array of degrees to ensure it offers the kind of training students need to land jobs after they graduate. For example, the college recently started an online nurse practitioner degree program so nurses across the state can upgrade their degree without leaving their communities, and a doctor of nursing practice that includes focuses in family medicine, psychiatry, and anesthesiology.

Click here to read the full article as it appeared in Iowa Now

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