Feels Like Spring at Salus: Week of March 15th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Good morning from Elkins Park, where Spring is flirting with us, just a little.  It’s the Ides of March and today marks the end of another busy week at Salus with many students taking mid-terms while other are busily working on special projects and getting ready to go on clinical rotations.

These last couple of days, we’ve been hosting the accreditation team from the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. They are here to review our SLP program. Their work should be completed later today with results to follow.

In our College of Education and Rehabilitation, Emily R. Vasile, MAT, TVI, MS, CLVT, has been invited to serve as a member of the Advisory Council of the Pennsylvania Deaf-Blind Project. The Advisory Council and its members serve a critical role to the Project by assisting in the identification of needs and areas for improvement as well as by providing feedback on materials, resources, and professional development. The members of the Council work in partnership with the Project to improve the lives of students with deaf-blindness and their families by building the capacity of intermediate units, school districts, and approved private schools through evidence-based practices and staff-driven collaboration. Congratulations!

On Monday evening, Salus Board member Rebecca Delia, Salus Provost, Dr. Barry Eckert and I attended a very interesting program addressing, “The Future of Work and its Implications for Higher Education." The program, which was sponsored by Deloitte and hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, addressed many of the themes we’ve been discussing during our Scenario Planning. Deloitte believes that the future of work is being shaped by the growing adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace and the expansion of the workforce includes both on and off balance sheet talent. These changes should be influencing higher education to ensure people have the right skills when they leave college or technical training. While most of the conversation focused on undergraduate educational programs and the importance of maintaining studies in the humanities and other liberal arts subjects, there was also an emphasis on stacked and competency based learning and hybrid/online courses. All this affects the way each of our professions will be trained and ultimately practice. Hence, the importance of embracing many of these disruptive technologies and looking at new educational models.

Somewhat related to that discussion, yesterday, I sent out an email to all students with a link to a survey that asks about your opinion concerning the four strategic imperatives our scenario planning developed. We really need your input if we’re going to get this right, so please take the time to fill out the survey.  

The Pennsylvania College of Optometry will be sponsoring an Alumni and Friends reception at Vision Expo East reception on next Saturday, March 23, 2019 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. So, if you’re up in New York for the meeting, please stop by.

Finally, do you want to know more about PCO’s founder? Check out this “tour” of Dr. Albert Fitch’s home.  It’s an interesting read!

Only a few weeks left until our PCO Centennial Celebration. Please click HERE to get your tickets!

As we approach the weekend, please take some time to get out and enjoy the nicer weather we have. Be safe, have fun and look out for one another!

Mike