2026 COMMENCEMENT SERIES | Dental students built cultural community, leave behind legacy of belonging

Four years ago, Aimen Mian and Aya Salhab walked into Marquette's Dental School for the first time together, side-by-side. This May, when they cross the Commencement stage, they'll be surrounded by a much larger community - one that tells stories of personal growth and a culture they helped nurture.

When they first arrived at Marquette, Mian and Salhab met other students who looked like them and held similar religious beliefs, but the two also found it difficult to make time with them outside the classroom. Mian mainly kept to herself and fell into a routine during her first year: go to class, go home, study, repeat.

"I felt like there were a lot of events that I just couldn't attend because a lot of it may be centered around stuff that, as a practicing Muslim, I wouldn't do," Mian says.

Marquette's Dental School has more than a dozen student organizations - some of them cultural - like the Asian Dental Student Association and the Hispanic Student Dental Association. But there was no official group for the school's Muslim population - something Mian and Salhab sought to change.

"A lot of people are moving across the United States to come here, and there's always that sense of loneliness when you move to a new place for the first time," Mian explains. "If there's not really an organization you fit into because you can't really go to some of the events, I was like, 'why don't we just make one anyone can be a part of?'"

At the start of their second year, Mian and Salhab worked together with the university to establish the Dental Chapter of the Muslim Student Association (DCMSA). The pair, who met in 10th grade at an Islamic school in Milwaukee and attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee together, already had their friendship and a strong Muslim community in the nearby suburbs. Now, they were bringing the life of that community to the School of Dentistry.

The group started out small, but something Mian and Salhab didn't expect quickly began to happen: non-Muslim students, faculty and staff began to take interest in the organization.

"In the beginning, most of the people that attended were non-Muslims," Salhab says. "They wanted to support us, but they also loved trying our food, they liked to learn about everything, and they were very supportive. It was really nice to shed some light on that, and to let them learn a little bit more about our culture."

Part of the organization's purpose is the educational aspect, Mian says, such as teaching non-Muslim student peers the cultural differences they may find with Muslim patients.

"Our patient population at the Dental School is very diverse, so if I can help them understand that when you get a Muslim patient and they're acting a certain way, I can say, 'these are the things we believe in, this is why we act the way we do, this is why they can't do that treatment,'" Mian says.

DCMSA hosts several events each semester open to all students, faculty and staff, including popular bake sales and its large iftar event each spring during Ramadan, which continues to grow every year.

Mian credits the organization for helping her break out of the quiet persona she had her first year. As she and Salhab prepare to graduate and begin their careers as general dentists in the Milwaukee area, Mian believes DCMSA will continue to provide an outlet for Muslim students and welcome a diverse cultural community to the School of Dentistry.

"Coming to the Dental School was a really big eye opener for me, and it made me more confident in myself because I grew up always surrounded by people who are like me," she says. "Now I'm here, and I'm this new person who decided to take this leadership position. It really just set my beliefs in who I am. I'm confident in my religion and I'm confident in my culture, and I want to be able to share that with the world."