Becoming a Dental Hygiene Educator: What CODA Requires of Faculty

A dental hygiene educator teaches in a Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA)–accredited dental hygiene program — the same kind of program that trains new RDHs.

It's an off-chair path built on top of the clinical career rather than a replacement for it: CODA's own faculty standards assume the person teaching has already been through the profession, whether as a dental hygienist or a dentist.

CODA's accreditation standards recognize distinct faculty roles in a program — didactic faculty who teach classroom courses, clinical and dental-science laboratory faculty who teach hands-on sessions, and the program administrator, who runs the program overall.

Each carries its own minimum degree requirement under CODA Standard 3-6, and the administrator role carries an additional set of requirements under Standards 3-2 and 3-3.

CODA Standard 3-6 sets the floor in plain terms: "All faculty of a dental hygiene program who teach in a didactic course must possess a baccalaureate or higher degree." Anyone teaching a lecture-based, classroom course — pharmacology, periodontology, radiography theory, and the like — needs at least a four-year degree, regardless of the subject.

Faculty whose teaching is confined to hands-on instruction are held to a lower floor: "All faculty whose teaching is limited to a clinical and dental science laboratory course must possess an associate or higher degree." In other words, an RDH with an associate degree can supervise clinic and lab sessions under this standard — but the moment their role expands into lecturing a didactic course, the bachelor's requirement applies.

A degree alone doesn't satisfy the standard.

CODA also requires faculty to have "current knowledge of the specific subjects they are teaching" and a "documented background in current educational methodology concepts" — meaning a program has to show its faculty were actually prepared to teach, not just credentialed to practice.

Hygienist and dentist faculty also have to show where they trained: they "must be graduates of programs accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation," with one named exception — dentists appointed to a faculty role before July 1, 2022 are exempt from that graduation requirement.

On top of all of it, the standard calls for "evidence of faculty calibration for clinical evaluation" — documentation that clinical instructors are grading students to a shared standard, not just their own individual judgment.

Running the program is its own role with its own requirements, separate from teaching in it.

CODA Standard 3-3 requires the administrator to "be a dental hygienist or a dentist who is a graduate of a program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation and possesses a masters or higher degree, who has background in education and the professional experience necessary to understand and fulfill the program goals."

Standard 3-2 adds that the administrator role must be a full-time appointment — it isn't a title layered onto someone's existing clinical or teaching load.

Between the two standards, becoming a program administrator means CODA-program graduation, a master's degree or higher, a background in education, and a full-time position — a materially higher bar than teaching faculty carry.

Because didactic faculty need a bachelor's and program administrators need a master's, the associate-vs-bachelor's decision matters more here than almost anywhere else in the profession.

The standard associate degree is enough to become an RDH and to teach clinical or lab sessions — but it stops there.

Reaching a didactic teaching role, and certainly the administrator's chair, requires the bachelor's (and eventually master's) that the associate-only path doesn't include.

That's consistent with how the profession already frames the choice: a bachelor's is optional for chairside practice but becomes the practical route once teaching, program leadership, or similar off-chair roles are the goal.

If teaching is a long-term goal, that's a reason to plan toward a bachelor's degree — either from the start or through a degree-completion track after earning an RDH — well before applying for a faculty opening.

It's worth being precise about what CODA's faculty standard doesn't say, because it's easy to assume more than is written.

The standard does not quantify a number of years of clinical or teaching experience before someone can join a faculty — it requires current subject knowledge and an educational-methodology background, not a specific tenure.

It also doesn't use the word "licensed." Standard 3-3 says a program administrator must be "a dental hygienist or a dentist," not a "licensed dental hygienist" — a distinction the standard itself draws.

CODA's accreditation standards also don't publish faculty pay figures or a count of how many dental hygiene faculty positions exist nationally, so neither is something this page (or any honest one) can responsibly cite.

Teaching is one of the clearest off-chair paths open to an experienced hygienist, alongside alternative-practice routes like California's RDHAP and public-health or administrative roles.

It runs on the same core credential — the RDH license earned through an accredited program, the NBDHE, and a clinical board exam — with CODA's faculty standards layered on top once the goal is the classroom or the lab instead of, or in addition to, the operatory.

For most hygienists, that means the path runs: earn the RDH, decide whether a bachelor's (and eventually a master's, for program leadership) fits your goals, and build the subject-matter and educational-methodology background CODA's faculty standard expects before applying for a teaching role.

This article summarizes CODA's published accreditation standards for career-planning purposes. It is general information, not legal or academic advice — accreditation standards can be revised, and individual programs may set additional hiring requirements beyond CODA's floor. Confirm current requirements with CODA and the specific program.