By Becky O’Guin, CDA Director of Communications
From the 2024 Winter Journal of the Colorado Dental Association
Volunteering offers opportunities to build skills that you may not necessarily learn just by going to dental school. It also provides something to think about besides yourself, according to CU dental students: Riley Spillar and Zach Zylstra.
Both Spillar and Zylstra volunteer for the American Student Dental Association (ASDA) at the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine.
Spillar is a 2026 Doctor of Dental Surgery Candidate, vice president of the CU Women’s Dental Club, health and wellness associate chair for ASDA, and D2 co-chair for the Dental Discovery Program, a community outreach program where dental students attend local high schools and introduce them to the career of dentistry. The goal of the program is to increase the diversity represented in the dental field.
Zylstra, the Colorado ASDA president, is a 2025 Doctor of Dental Surgery Candidate and the Christian Medical and Dental Association’s (CMDA) D3 Representative.
Zylstra acknowledges that holding a leadership role is nice for his resume, but he gets a lot more out of it than that. Being in a leadership role is the fastest way to grow interpersonal skills and connections, which are important to success. Sure, being involved in ASDA means you cannot do some other things you want to do, but he said, “I can’t imagine going through school without it.”
Spillar said that being involved in ASDA has enabled her to do things she would not have otherwise been able to do as effectively, such as working with people from different backgrounds and learning to trust her peers. She said volunteering made her more interested in school and attending classes. “Personally, I do better when I’m really busy,” she said.
Spillar was pushed into leadership roles before dental school, which helped her get past her apprehension. You must believe in something outside of yourself to get through dental school, she said. For her, being involved in leadership allows her to focus on something besides just getting good grades and doing well in school. It gives her an avenue to be creative and build all kinds of business skills in addition to dental skills.
She coordinated her first fundraiser in the fall of 2023, a 5K fun run. “I had to talk to vendors, take a traffic training course, do a lot of paperwork, and talk to city officials,” she said. The race was successful with almost 100 runners, raising $3,099 for the Generations Fund. The Generations Fund helps fill in the gap for people who don’t qualify for free dental programs, but still can’t afford all their needed dental services.
Spillar and Zylstra are not just learning leadership and business skills by volunteering for ASDA, they are learning life skills such as adequacy.
“I am grateful to be learning the skill of adequacy. I strive for excellence and yet being the president of two different clubs, being in school and recently getting married means that I must make decisions about what is good enough all the time. And that is what they teach us at the dental school too. We are all perfectionists, and you need to realize when good enough is good enough and to stop, because that is when you get in trouble as a dentist—when you try to do more and you make it worse,” Zylstra said.
Another benefit of volunteering for ASDA is that it is the largest advocacy platform that students have for themselves. It provides advocacy for the profession of dentistry and advocacy for the patients they see. Zylstra says the platform gives them the freedom to think outside of themselves and apply what they are learning and experiencing. “That is why I got into ASDA, I care deeply about the community around us and I saw this as the best way to have a voice on their behalf,” Zylstra said.
Spillar also said that ASDA has the most collaborative leadership group on campus. “ASDA is a community, and the one club that allows everyone to come with their own ideas and go where they want to go,” she said. “It’s a nice steppingstone into real advocacy work outside of school.”
She is glad that she had someone to push her into leadership roles because they can be intimidating. Knowing that she has people who have her back and can offer guidance allows her to enjoy the experience. “There is pressure, but it is good pressure,” she said.
The road ahead is not paved with roses, but both Spillar and Zylstra are thinking about the future.
“With the student debt crisis right now, so many of us are just worried about getting a job and getting our heads back above water and that doesn’t leave a lot of room to think outside of yourself.” Even though he has debt, he says if you find something you enjoy and are passionate about, you have to take the extra step to be involved in it. “If I’m sitting here only thinking of myself, I’m going to be a miserable human being, but if I graduate school and apply myself, I’m going to have a better quality of life.”
