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MPH professor named president-elect of American Dental Hygienists’ Association

In 1993, Sharlee Burch started her health education at Liberty University, a school she had fallen in love with as a high-schooler. But 20 years later, she would reconnect with her former college again, this time as a Doctor of Education student with Liberty University Online Programs and as a professor for the Master of Public Health (MPH) online program.

Dr. Sharlee Burch, an online professor for Liberty’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program, was announced as the president-elect of the American Dental Hygienists Association in May.

Burch visited Liberty for College For A Weekend event as a high school senior and decided to enroll in Liberty’s School of Nursing. She said she enjoyed the campus atmosphere.

“My grandmother was a nurse, my aunt was a nurse, and my dad really wanted me to go into nursing, so nursing was sort of my default,” Burch said. “I really wanted to go to Liberty because I loved the spirit there in 1993 and it still has that today — there’s a spirit of the body (of Christ) and feeling of a family that infuses the campus.”

However, after a semester at Liberty, she felt called to study dental hygiene and moved back to her home state to attend Western Kentucky University, where she earned her bachelor’s in dental hygiene in 1997 and master’s in public health in 2000. Burch went on to conduct clinical work and research, gradually moving into the academic side of the field. She has spent the past 19 years working with the Kentucky Department of Public Health and the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry in public health research and practice.

Years later, after discovering Liberty’s online doctorate in education, Burch became a Liberty student once again. As a new mother, the remote format provided the flexibility she needed.

“The Lord keeps his promises to us, and my hopes came to fruition 20 years later when I graduated with my doctoral degree,” Burch said. “I had always missed Liberty and loved being connected with it. I came to campus a few times for intensives and events (during the doctoral program), and coming back was so nice and I liked seeing the changes.”

During one such visit, she met with Dr. Richard Lane, who at the time was developing a new graduate program in public health, and in 2014 Burch became one of the early adjunct professors in the new online Master of Public Health program. She is also an instructional mentor and subject matter expert in the School of Health Sciences’ Department of Public and Community Health.

While still a student at Western Kentucky in 1995, Burch began to serve with the American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA), and she has continued to work with the national organization in multiple roles over the years. Burch was recently announced as the ADHA’s president-elect.

“I’ll serve a year as president-elect, a year as president, and a year as immediate past president, so I have several years of service still to come,” she said. “Since I’m an online faculty member, I do have a lot of flexibility, and when I’ve traveled with ADHA over these past years, I’ve been able to take Liberty with me wherever I go and do that work. I’m very fortunate in that, and I’ve received a lot of encouragement from my fellow faculty members at Liberty.”

Burch’s motivation to study, practice, and teach public health and dental hygiene springs from her recognition of how oral care is sometimes less lobbied for or receives less focus than other health care fields.

“Oftentimes in public health the mouth is sort of separated from the rest of the body and there’s a lack of value placed on oral health,” she said. “It’s important for us to love people through our talents, and so my talents clinically and educationally have allowed me to push for people’s access to the care they desperately need and understand why oral health is important.”

With her position as president-elect, paired with her ability to continue teaching with Liberty, Burch sees the opportunity to advocate more for oral and public health in different communities.

“Much of our work in dental hygiene is about educating people about their bodies and how their mouth’s health impacts the rest of their body,” Burch explained. “My work at Liberty has been very satisfying in that I get to teach students about public health communications, health advocacy, and health administration.”

In her six years with Liberty’s online MPH program, Burch has seen her students and fellow faculty rally around the goal of building up quality servants and connecting with each student despite the physical distance of online learning.

“Our department has this sense of accountability with our faculty where we want to be excellent in our content and with the subject matter, but we also want to be excellent with the connection to the students,” Burch said. “I get to meet the students where they are and we have a really diverse setup of students from literally all around the world and in different stages of their life. We have to equip and stand with one another, and together we get to do great work.”

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