Mary Jacks, RDH, MS, is an associate professor in the Department of Dental Hygiene at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) where she has taught full time since 2000. Her areas of teaching expertise include: periodontics, ad vanced hand and powered instrumentation, faculty calibration, humor in health care, and distance education technologies. Jacks also has more than 25 years of clinical experience. She has lectured both nationally and internationally on faculty calibration to create fair testing environments and ultrasonic instrumentation. Jacks received the UTHSCSA Presidential Teaching Excellence award in 2007 and the American Dental Hygienists' Association/Crest-Oral B Dental Hygiene Educator of the Year Award in 2008.