Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,
Greetings from a very busy Elkins Park campus where our hot and muggy weather is finally gone, although it’s a bit soggy this morning! We have our summer cohort of Blindness and Low Vision Studies students on campus for their face-to-face learning experience in addition to students from all our other programs. It’s fun watching our BLVS students navigate around with their blinders and canes. In addition to this, here are some other activities that will be of interest to you:
THE COLLEGE TOUR: We had a great time last night at the launch party for the Salus segment of The College Tour, a TV series produced by Emmy-nominated and multi-award-winning producers featuring individual episodes on colleges and universities across the country. Special thanks to Dr. Juliana Mosley-Williams for serving as our Mistress of Ceremonies and to Alexis Abate and her communications team for putting the event together. I’d also like to thank the stars of the show, those students and faculty who made the production come to life, for sharing their stories with all of us. The evening included a viewing of the show, which streams on Amazon Prime and Roku, a meet-and-greet with the “stars”, refreshments and a DJ. To read more about The College Tour experience, go to salus.edu/TheCollegeTour.
OTI DIRECTOR: Brianna Brim, assistant professor of Occupational Therapy, has been named director of the Occupational Therapy Institute (OTI), located at The Eye Institute. James Konopack, PhD, dean of the College of Health Sciences, Education and Rehabilitation (CHER) made the announcement this week. Brianna brings a unique blend of clinical expertise, legislative and advocacy leadership, interprofessional education, and a strong record of scholarship and student mentorship to OTI. Congratulations Brianna! I know the OTI will be in great hands!
SPECIAL RECOGNITION: I’d like to extend our congratulations to Joel Silbert, OD ‘73, FAAO, former director of the Contact Lens Program and former chief of the Cornea and Specialty Contact Lens Service at TEI, who was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of Optometric Contact Lens Educators (AOCLE); and to Brooke Kruemmling, PhD, COMS, Associate Provost, who was presented with the Salus coin on June 2 in recognition of her leadership on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.
FACULTY FOCUS: This week’s Faculty Focus features Christine McCormick, MS, MMS, PA-C, an assistant professor in the University’s Physician Assistant (PA) Studies program. Find out how she went from wanting to be a professional dancer to becoming a PA and which Disney character “influenced” her wedding dress. To read more, go here.
SLP PODCAST SERIES: The next installment of our podcast series about the Speech-Language Pathology program at Salus University features department chair and program director Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, FNAP, as he speaks with a clinical educator and three students about about their field experience in the preschool setting. To listen to the podcast, click here.
ARTICULATION AGREEMENT: Salus University and Manhattan College recently signed an articulation agreement creating a pathway for Manhattan College students to earn their master’s degrees in occupational therapy. Under the agreement, students who gain admission into Salus via the 4+2 program will be able to complete their Master of Science in Occupational Therapy (MSOT) degree program in two years. Read more about it here.
FINAL THOUGHTS: On Monday we will be welcoming 15 students into our revitalized Robert E. Horne Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) thanks to a very generous grant from America’s Best/National Vision Inc. The initial SEP was developed by Dean Robert Horne in 1977. It was funded by a government grant to support, “disadvantaged students”. Since then, the mission of the program has shifted to help assure that Salus continues to attract talented students of color who want to pursue health professions. As a testimony to the success of the SEP program, Pennsylvania College of Optometry remains one of the most diverse optometric programs in the country with the largest black student enrollment. Of note, while PCO may be number one, we still have a great deal of work to do to ensure that all of our programs, to include optometry, are representative of those communities we live and work in.
Finally, I want to once again, address the importance of getting vaccinated. As we survey our current student body as well as incoming students, while we’re doing fairly well, we are not at levels I would expect a university specializing in the health sciences to be. If any of you who have not yet gotten vaccinated and need to get more information about these very safe and effective vaccines, here are some links you can reference: The Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), WebMD, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, to name just a few. Additionally, the Black Doctors Consortium has been extremely successful in decreasing vaccine hesitancy amongst the African American community in Philadelphia. You can learn more about their efforts here. Keeping the Salus community healthy and safe is our primary concern. Because we also work closely with patients and clients, we have an additional responsibility to keep them safe, as well as protect ourselves and our loved ones. Thus, it is our expectation that unless people have a medical or religious reason not to get vaccinated, they do the right thing and get the jab. Please, if you’re not vaccinated do it now. As you prepare for this weekend, try to get out and enjoy the nice weather. If you are unvaccinated, wear your mask when indoors or outside around others. Please watch out for one another and stay SALUS STRONG!
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