{"id":218840,"date":"2026-03-14T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/218840\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:00:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:00:35","slug":"the-first-members-of-fccs-bachelors-program-are-set-to-graduate-the-rampage-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/218840\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Members of FCC\u2019s Bachelor\u2019s Program are Set to Graduate \u2013 The Rampage Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Naomi Jackson was accepted into Fresno City College\u2019s Dental Hygiene program<\/a>, she didn\u2019t know she\u2019d be eligible to receive a bachelor\u2019s degree. Chosen by a lottery system with more than 200 applications, Jackson was one of 30 students selected for FCC\u2019s only bachelor\u2019s program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drawn to Fresno from Madera looking for a dental hygiene degree, Jackson said FCC\u2019s program was the only in-person program she could find in the Central Valley. Now she\u2019ll be graduating with 28 of her peers, making them the first students to leave FCC with a bachelor\u2019s degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California community colleges started offering bachelor\u2019s degrees in 2014, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 850<\/a>. The bill originally allowed 15 community college districts to offer a four-year pilot program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since then, community colleges have added to their list of offered bachelor\u2019s degrees, which were made permanent under Assembly Bill 927<\/a> as long as a nearby California State University doesn\u2019t offer the same degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program was made possible in 2023 when FCC got approved to offer a bachelor\u2019s degree in dental hygiene, according to Dental Hygiene Program Director Joanne Pacheco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pacheco said FCC tried to get approval for the dental hygiene degree program in 2014 and 2015, but was turned down both times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d Pacheco said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program had 22 classes rewritten to fit the program criteria before receiving official approval from the Commission on Dental Accreditation<\/a>, according to Pacheco. On top of accreditation, Dean of Allied Health Lorraine Smith said the program was reviewed by the Associated Student Government, the Academic Senate and Management Council before it was approved to begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pacheco saw a need for more dental hygienists in the Central Valley, describing the region as a \u201cdental desert.\u201d Fresno has 34 areas with a shortage of dental healthcare professionals<\/a> according to HRSA Data Warehouse.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is definitely an underserved area here in the Central Valley,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cA lot of people need dental care. Since it\u2019s [FCC\u2019s dental hygiene clinic] open to the public, it\u2019s great for people to know.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson said she treats about 20 patients per semester as a part of her training. Across the program, Pacheco said the clinic treats about 2,000 patients annually, most of which are people from outside of campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pacheco also noticed students were taking a total of 107 units to earn their associate degree, only 13 units short of the 120 units needed for a bachelor\u2019s degree<\/a> at Fresno State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three upper-division classes were added to qualify the program to give bachelor\u2019s degrees. Jackson said she\u2019s taking organizational communication, medical ethics and medical anthropology.<\/p>\n

An Alternative to CSU<\/p>\n

In the Health Sciences building on campus, Jackson can be found working from morning to evening at the dental hygiene clinic. Members from the community fill the waiting rooms with $30 on hand for dental cleaning done by students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson felt \u201clucky and blessed\u201d to be the first graduating class of the program, stating that she and her classmates will have an easier time moving further in their career after graduation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [students] can go straight to getting their master\u2019s, which opens the door for more opportunities to teach or advance their career,\u201d Jackson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lower cost of tuition at a community college compared to a CSU is another benefit for students. Jackson said her total tuition cost about $32,000 with interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Students also get connected to local clinics. Pacheco said every graduating student already has a job lined up after they leave campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith said people with bachelor\u2019s degrees get higher salaries compared to those with only an associate, which was another reason she advocated for the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there\u2019s recognition that what students are learning in these career fields do involve higher level decision making, critical thinking, and really should be at the bachelor\u2019s level,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another licensure, the Registered Dental Hygienist in Alternative Practice (RDHAP)<\/a> requires a bachelor\u2019s degree to pursue. The RDHAP program allows dental hygienists to practice outside of a dental office, according to Pacheco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pacheco said students who have a RDHAP license can go to high need areas to provide care from their own clinics, something she said many dental hygiene students are already practicing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dental hygiene pathway holds two degrees \u2013 the bachelor\u2019s degree program and bridge program, which allows people who already have an associate degree to gain their bachelor\u2019s \u2013 but the campus is looking to add another in allied health. Smith said that FCC submitted an application to start a bachelor\u2019s degree program in radiologic technology<\/a>. It\u2019s currently waiting to be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson supported the idea of adding more bachelor\u2019s programs to FCC to get more members in the workforce and higher wages for employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the first ones, so they\u2019re still working out some of the details to make it better, but I\u2019m just really excited to see what the future holds for this clinic and this program,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Naomi Jackson was accepted into Fresno City College\u2019s Dental Hygiene program, she didn\u2019t know she\u2019d be eligible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-218840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}