<\/p>\n
Last Thursday, Dean John Boyer unveiled a new wellness initiative: Dental Health\u00a0Awareness Week. Dean Boyer said the campaign was put in place to ensure no student forgets the importance of dental hygiene amid the stress of Finals Week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posters are now up all over the Quad with helpful tips and resources, reminding students to brush\u00a0their teeth four times daily. In extreme situations, students can now schedule one-on-one\u00a0appointments with dental health counselors through my.uchicago.edu.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an school-wide email, Boyer wrote:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve all been there: camped out in the B-level in the dark from the hours of two to six in\u00a0preparation for midterm exams and papers, waiting for a security guard to kick you out. While it\u00a0can be tempting to wait to brush your teeth until you get home at 7:00 a.m., this schedule can actually be detrimental to your hygiene. Waiting so long and\u00a0then vigorously brushing twice in a short period of time can strip off years of enamel and, in fact,\u00a0lead to more cavities down the line.\u00a0Instead, for the sake of your dental health, the administration\u00a0advises students to bring a toothbrush to the A-level so you can brush at midnight. Give your teeth the\u00a0imagined feeling you actually are sleeping while you pummel cups of cold, but free, midnight Harper\u00a0coffee and Clif Builder\u2019s bars in your mouth to stay awake.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dean recommends students take advantage of their all-nighters for dental hygiene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re\u00a0going to be up all night in a decreased state of productivity working on a list of things\u00a0no human being can ever accomplish, you can at least use it to the advantage of your dental\u00a0health!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The administration now tells students to brush their teeth four times a day, on an evenly\u00a0paced schedule every six hours, the first one at 10:00 a.m. and last at 4:00 a.m. with an iPhone\u00a0flashlight on, as you hide in the pitch-black of the fourth-floor stacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First-year dental-health advocate Russell Haneman says, \u201cI think it\u2019s really good they\u2019re finally\u00a0addressing it. Dental health has always carried stigma around campus. It\u2019s really not something\u00a0you see students willing to talk about, even with close friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Student organization Active Mouths founder and president, third-year Rachel Wilson, says\u00a0students often fail to demonstrate sensitivity towards dental health issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDental health has\u00a0become a joke\u2014even though it\u2019s not at all something you joke about,” says Wilson. “A lot of times you\u2019ll see\u00a0students making jokes about their poor hygiene during finals, at the cost of students who\u00a0actually have really shitty teeth they never brush. I hope for starters this will make students more\u00a0aware of the harmful impact even self-deprecating, dental-health related jokes can have on the\u00a0community.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boyer added that as a student body, we often overlook the implications of dental health on our\u00a0overall well-being and academic performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWill our \u2018that kid\u2019 be able to speak as freely\u00a0every second of class if he\u2019s ashamed of revealing his yellowed teeth stained by Ex Libris coffee\u00a0and an insufficient brushing schedule? How will he have the confidence to drag out such\u00a0groundless, esoteric points in six to eight-page SOSC sequence papers if he’s self-conscious\u00a0about the way his teeth look?\u00a0I mean, does free speech really matter if your breath smells so bad that no one wants to talk to you?\u00a0In short, if we\u2019re gonna take four years to ruin our students\u2019 mental and physical\u00a0well-beings otherwise, we might as well leave them with a set of shiny, pearl-white teeth. That\u2019s\u00a0how my wife fell in love with me. She saw them moving up and down with my lips, flashing at\u00a0her during forty minutes of platitudes on the demise of the American educational institution in a\u00a0commencement speech I gave, say, a couple dozen years ago. The rest is history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inspired by many years of student protest for free tampons, Dean Boyer announced a similar\u00a0initiative to bring free toothbrushes to every bathroom in the Regenstein Library.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s part of my\u00a0new campaign,” says Boyer. “Why not finally give the students what they want\u2014but also what they don\u2019t\u00a0want at all?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
To welcome all 7,000 incoming and returning students in the coming years, Dean\u00a0Boyer even plans on offering a free toothbrush for year-round use.\u00a0In an exclusive interview with a panel of Dealer<\/i> reporters, Boyer announced: \u201cMy goal in life is\u00a0to make sure we have all 7,000 new and returning students\u2019 244,000 teeth preserved and white\u00a0by graduation\u2014that\u2019s 367 more than Harvard\u2019s record the year before WWII.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Harry Weinstein Dec. 5, 2018 Last Thursday, Dean John Boyer unveiled a new wellness initiative: Dental Health\u00a0Awareness Week. Dean Boyer said the campaign was put in place to ensure no student forgets the importance of dental hygiene amid the stress of Finals Week.\u00a0 Posters are now up all over the Quad with helpful tips and resources, reminding students to brush\u00a0their teeth four times daily. In extreme situations, students can now schedule one-on-one\u00a0appointments with dental health counselors through my.uchicago.edu.\u00a0 In an school-wide email, Boyer wrote:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve all been there: camped out in the B-level in the dark from the hours of two to six in\u00a0preparation for midterm exams and papers, waiting for a security guard to kick you out. While it\u00a0can be tempting to wait to brush your teeth until you get home at 7:00 a.m., this schedule can actually be detrimental to your hygiene. Waiting so long and\u00a0then vigorously brushing twice in a short period of time can strip off years of enamel and, in fact,\u00a0lead to more cavities down the line.\u00a0Instead, for the sake of your dental health, the administration\u00a0advises students to bring a toothbrush to the A-level so you can brush at midnight. Give your teeth the\u00a0imagined feeling you actually are sleeping while you pummel cups of cold, but free, midnight Harper\u00a0coffee and Clif Builder\u2019s bars in your mouth to stay awake.\u201d\u00a0 The Dean recommends students take advantage of their all-nighters for dental hygiene.\u00a0 \u201cIf you\u2019re\u00a0going to be up all night in a decreased state of productivity working on a list of things\u00a0no human being can ever accomplish, you can at least use it to the advantage of your dental\u00a0health!\u201d\u00a0 The administration now tells students to brush their teeth four times a day, on an evenly\u00a0paced schedule every six hours, the first one at 10:00 a.m. and last at 4:00 a.m. with an iPhone\u00a0flashlight on, as you hide in the pitch-black of the fourth-floor stacks.\u00a0 First-year dental-health advocate Russell Haneman says, \u201cI think it\u2019s really good they\u2019re finally\u00a0addressing it. Dental health has always carried stigma around campus. It\u2019s really not something\u00a0you see students willing to talk about, even with close friends.\u201d\u00a0 Student organization Active Mouths founder and president, third-year Rachel Wilson, says\u00a0students often fail to demonstrate sensitivity towards dental health issues.\u00a0 \u201cDental health has\u00a0become a joke\u2014even though it\u2019s not at all something you joke about,” says Wilson. “A lot of times you\u2019ll see\u00a0students making jokes about their poor hygiene during finals, at the cost of students who\u00a0actually have really shitty teeth they never brush. I hope for starters this will make students more\u00a0aware of the harmful impact even self-deprecating, dental-health related jokes can have on the\u00a0community.”\u00a0 Boyer added that as a student body, we often overlook the implications of dental health on our\u00a0overall well-being and academic performance.\u00a0 \u201cWill our \u2018that kid\u2019 be able to speak as freely\u00a0every second of class if he\u2019s ashamed of revealing his yellowed teeth stained by Ex Libris coffee\u00a0and an insufficient brushing schedule? How will he have the confidence to drag out such\u00a0groundless, esoteric points in six to eight-page SOSC sequence papers if he’s self-conscious\u00a0about the way his teeth look?\u00a0I mean, does free speech really matter if your breath smells so bad that no one wants to talk to you?\u00a0In short, if we\u2019re gonna take four years to ruin our students\u2019 mental and physical\u00a0well-beings otherwise, we might as well leave them with a set of shiny, pearl-white teeth. That\u2019s\u00a0how my wife fell in love with me. She saw them moving up and down with my lips, flashing at\u00a0her during forty minutes of platitudes on the demise of the American educational institution in a\u00a0commencement speech I gave, say, a couple dozen years ago. The rest is history.\u201d\u00a0 Inspired by many years of student protest for free tampons, Dean Boyer announced a similar\u00a0initiative to bring free toothbrushes to every bathroom in the Regenstein Library.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s part of my\u00a0new campaign,” says Boyer. “Why not finally give the students what they want\u2014but also what they don\u2019t\u00a0want at all?\u201d\u00a0 To welcome all 7,000 incoming and returning students in the coming years, Dean\u00a0Boyer even plans on offering a free toothbrush for year-round use.\u00a0In an exclusive interview with a panel of Dealer reporters, Boyer announced: \u201cMy goal in life is\u00a0to make sure we have all 7,000 new and returning students\u2019 244,000 teeth preserved and white\u00a0by graduation\u2014that\u2019s 367 more than Harvard\u2019s record the year before WWII.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-komono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/2424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}