Centennial Celebration Weekend - Week of April 26th

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

Greetings from Elkins Park and the beginning of our Centennial Celebration weekend! I can’t believe it’s actually here!

Tonight, at 6:00 p.m., at the Science Institute, we celebrate the achievements of 35 professionals who have made significant contributions to their professions, the Pennsylvania College of Optometry and Salus University. It’s going to be a very special weekend that kicks off our celebration that goes through the weekend.

Concurrently, on Friday night from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. the AOSA Quiz Bowl will be happening in the Hafter Center. All students and faculty are welcome to attend, and those who do will receive two drink tickets and food. Second year optometry students will compete and the winner will go on to represent PCO in the national ASOA Quiz Bowl competition at the Optometry’s Meeting in June 2020.On Saturday, we’ll begin the day with free optometric continuing education on the Elkins Park campus at 8:00 a.m. sponsored by Physician Recommended Nutraceuticals. Drs. James Deom and Thomas Kislan will be discussing a practice guide to build a sustainable, medically focused practice to capitalize on the changing landscape in eye care.

At 10:00 a.m. the Salus Alumni Board will hold its annual meeting in room S301 on the Elkins Park campus. I’ll be giving an update about all the great things that are happening at the University and we’ll hear about plans for the coming year. All alumni are invited and encouraged to attend.

Campus tours of both Elkins Park and TEI in East Oak Lane; and PEI and SLI Open Houses will begin at 10:00 a.m. and go until 1:00 p.m. At 12:30 p.m., there will be the Presidential Medal of Honor Plaque Unveiling at the Hafter Student Community Center.

In additional to all the other things going on Saturday morning, Salus - PCO faculty and students will perform comprehensive eye exams at the VSP® Chester, Pa. event. Community service is in our DNA – and this is yet another example of how we care for those in need.

Now, that’s a busy morning! The BIG EVENT, the Gala, celebrating 100 years of Pennsylvania College of Optometry’s legacy, starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Hilton Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing and the Essilor Luxottica “After Party” starts at 9:30 p.m. 

View Weekend Schedule

This will be a great weekend of events to celebrate the College’s 100 years, and a great kickoff to the next 100 for the entire University.

As a prelude to this weekend’s events, on Tuesday, I was interviewed by Rosemary Connors from NBC10, who will also be hosting the Gala. Here’s a link to the interview if anyone’s interested.

Needless to say, it’s going to be an action-packed, fun weekend. I hope everyone has the opportunity to participate in any or all of the festivities. We’ve got a great deal to be thankful for and to celebrate. The Pennsylvania College of Optometry pretty much defined how optometry is practiced today and will continue to do so well into the future. That’s something to celebrate!

Have a great weekend. I hope to see many of you at the functions both on and off campus.

Mike

Graduation Is Right Around the Corner: Week of April 18th

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

Greetings on a beautiful Thursday from Elkins Park. My update is a day early this week due to the holiday schedule. 

Last Friday, students and staff participated in the inaugural Health Fair conducted by the LeVine Backstretch Clinic, which is operated at the Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pa., as part of the horse racing facility. Salus had the largest group of participants with 21 volunteers and conducted 78 vision screenings and 28 hearing screenings. It was a great turn out. 

Renovations are under way at The Eye Institute at Chestnut Hill – last week new auto-phoropters were installed. Other renovations will include new signage, remodeling of the front desk area and a renovation of the pre-screening area. 

I can’t believe it, but our Centennial Gala is only a week away! Catch up on some more PCO history with this story on Melissa Trego, OD’04, Resident ’09, PhD, PCO dean. 

Finally, with so much swirling around in the news these days, between the horrible fire at Notre Dame Cathedral and the release of the Mueller Report, it’s easy to forget that this weekend should be one of reflection and celebration. On Friday evening our Jewish colleagues and friends will begin to celebrate Passover, commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. At the same time, our Christian colleagues and friends will be observing Good Friday and then celebrating Easter on Sunday. Both of these holidays represent a time to reflect with family and friends how lucky we all are to be able to observe these holidays together in a country that was founded on the premise of religious freedom and equality. 

I hope everyone takes some time this long weekend to take a break from all the news around us and concentrate on what’s most important – family and friends. 

Be safe, get some exercise and come back next week ready to move into the final stretch as our semesters begin to come to a close. Graduation for many is just around the corner! 

Happy Passover and Happy Easter to all those celebrating these holidays!

Mike

Raising Awareness in DC: Week of April 12th

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

Greetings from Salus where Spring is in full bloom and our new stock of goslings are floating around our pond. Between some of our students taking exams and others on spring break, the campus has appeared to be pretty quiet this week although there’s lots going on!

Earlier in the week, about twenty students and I headed down to Washington DC, along with 600 other Doctors of Optometry and students to bring the American Optometric Association’s pro-patient, pro-access message to nearly all of the 535 members of the 116th Congress. During that time, we had the opportunity to brief members of Congress on important issues and pending legislation that included:

• Fighting costly health and vision plan abuses
• Stopping the FTC's unnecessary contact lens paperwork proposal
• Making the contact lens prescription verification process simpler and safer
• Supporting essential vision, eye health care for veterans by continuing to fight for better vision and eye health care for America's veterans
• Preserving the doctor-patient relationship, legislation that argues for the appropriate use of tele-health services as a supplement to high-value, high-quality eye and vision care.

Our students carried the day in discussions with legislative staffers and a few principles. While these visits don’t guarantee support, they certainly raise awareness of key issues facing our patients and the profession, overall.

On Thursday, Dr. Stephen Pugliese, our liaison representative from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), our University accrediator, spent most of the day at Salus as one of the first steps in the self-study review process with MSCHE. The process plays a vital role in the University’s ongoing planning, assessment, and accreditation and provides the opportunity to document Salus University’s impact and effectiveness as an institution of higher education. In addition to meeting with me, several Board of Trustee members and our MSCHE internal Steering Group, there was also an open forum for student leadership, faculty and staff which was extremely well-attended.

On Thursday evening, the Sports Vision Club hosted a webinar with the Sports Vision Pros - three prominent optometrists in the sports vision field - where they discussed cases and hot topics commonly seen in sports vision.

On Saturday, Salus Physician Assistant students will take part in the PA Olympics - with other area PA programs - at the Bamboo Gardens in Vincentown, NJ. Games will include “Dodge the Flu", “Egg Speculum”, and Trivia. Good luck!

Also, on Saturday, from 10AM – noon, we will be hosting “A Conversation with Veterans” along with State Representatives Steve McCarter and Jared Solomon.  The goal of the forum is to identify some of the challenges Veterans in the local area might be having and discuss possible solutions.  If you’re interested in hearing the discussions, please join us in the Lombardi Classroom.

To celebrate #NationalFoodMonth, why not get cookin’ with our throwback to the Pennsylvania College of Optometry Out of Sight Recipe book - published in 1994. If you try one of the recipes we pulled - take a photo and tag us!

Finally, only a couple of short weeks until our CentennialGala. I’m extremely excited about honoring all of our Presidential Awardees on the 26^th, as well as the party on the 27^th! I hope you all have purchased your tickets and got your dancing shoes all shined and ready to go. We’ve got over 400 people registered for the event which is going to fill that room at the Hilton!  

Have a great weekend.  Be safe, have some fun and look out for one another!

Mike

SLP Capstone Presentations: Week of April 5th

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

Greetings from a cold and rainy Elkins Park. What happened to Spring??? The campus has been a little quieter than usual since some of our programs are on their Spring break.

Earlier this week I attended the annual meeting of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) in Harrisburg. The most important issue they are working on, in my opinion as it pertains to us, involves potential changes to federal financial aid programs and how ultimately loans will be paid back. We (Salus) have been very strong advocates for deferral of interest accrual until after graduation as well as expansion of shortage area loan forgiveness programs that include all of our professions. I’m not overly optimistic we’ll see quick changes, but my plan is to be the “squeaky wheel” since very few are raising these issues. 

Yesterday, students from the Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) program presented their capstone project posters to a good size crowd in the Hafter Center, including Dr. Eckert and I. The work was fantastic and really a reflection of all the hard work both the students and faculty mentors put into these projects over the course a semester. Well done!

We’re less than a month away from our Centennial celebration. Dr. Jeff Nyman and I were interviewed by Monica Cryan from PHL17, who just happens to be Dr. Pagani’s daughter, earlier this week and I had the pleasure of being interviewed yesterday by Patty Jackson from WDAS (105.3), which was lots of fun. Both interviews centered on PCO’s heritage and the commitment we have had to our community over the past 100 years. So, I hope this helps to motivate you to purchase your tickets for the Gala. There’s still some time. Just click here to get your tickets.

Next week many of us will be in Washington, DC to help the American Optometric Association educate several Congressional leaders about optometry and some of the national legislative issues that affect how we all practice. I’m always excited about participating in these events and even more excited that our students will be engaged, which is so very important.

I hope everyone has a safe and restful weekend and has a chance to get out and enjoy some of the early buds and flowers. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate!

Mike