Fall Commencement, Week of October 18th

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

This morning I’m sending this update out from sunny and cool Charleston, South Carolina where I had the opportunity to meet up with Dr. Eckert who is attending the annual conference of the Association of Schools Advancing Health Profession’s annual conference and board meeting.  Our own Dr. Mitch Scheiman will be presenting to the group and Dr. Eckert sits on their board.  I am “double dipping” on this trip as I am also in town to speak at a retirement ceremony for one of my Navy colleagues who will be transitioning after 30 years of service to our great navy and country.  I love it when a plan comes together!

I’d like to give a “shout out” to Dr. Jim Caldwell and Ms. Shannon Boss and their staffs for all the work they did to ensure that Monday’s graduation lunch and long white coat ceremony and Tuesday’s commencement ceremony at the Kimmel Center all went off without a hitch!  Thank you for all the work you do to make it all look easy (and we all know it’s not!).

Closer to home, I'm excited to announce that a Blindness and Low Vision Studies (BLVS) grant proposal has been selected for funding by the Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The $750,000 grant will support Project MORE: Mentorships for Outcomes Related to Employment, a project designed to alleviate the nationwide shortage of qualified low vision rehabilitation (LVR) and vision rehabilitation therapy (VRT) personnel and address documented employment challenges experienced by individuals with visual impairments. Kerry Lueders, MS, COMS, TVI, CLVT, assistant professor for BLVS will be the Project Director. Congratulations to the whole BLVS team for making this happen! 

During the last week of August, twelve Physician Assistant (PA) students, along with PA faculty members, returned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a one-time workshop with Museum educators as a part of a series of workshops called “The Art of Observation.”   NBC10 was there to feature the educational workshop on a segment called “Growing Greater Philadelphia” which aired Tuesday night. You can watch it online here. I encourage you to watch the entire segment as it features local business leaders and entrepreneurs from our region. Our segment starts roughly at 16:30. Thank you to everyone who made this happen!  

Last weekend, Anna Grasso, MS, OTR/L, CAPS, assistant professor of our Occupational Therapy (OT) program, along with two OT students from the Phi Theta Epsilon OT Honor Society volunteered with the Rebuilding Together Philadelphia (RTP) Block Build event in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. During these events, Ms. Grasso and the students were able to provide adaptive equipment and home safety recommendations for homeowners and their families to improve health and safety. Read more about their partnership with RTP at salus.edu/RTP-OT.

This Saturday, the Pennsylvania Ear Institute (PEI) will be hosting its annual Fall Open House from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Audiology students and PEI clinical staff will be hosting tours of PEI, providing hearing screenings, demos of hearing aids and other technology, “meet the experts” talks, and more. If you know anyone who would be interested in stopping by, send them this link to register! 

Also this weekend, students from our Student Academy of Audiology (SAA) will be attending the Pennsylvania Walk4Hearing event at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Our students and audiology faculty members will also be providing hearing screenings for this years attendees. For more information visit http://hlaa.convio.net/site/TR?fr_id=2566&pg=entry.

With some of you now finished with mid-terms and others still looking forward to them, I encourage you all to take a “brain-break” and get out to enjoy the pretty fall colors and nice weather.  Have a great weekend – Many of us will be gone next week at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Optometry.  For those of you who will be there, please join us for our Alumni and Friends reception on Friday evening in the Orchid Room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at 7:30PM.

Mike