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

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

A Very Special Year for Salus: Week of January 4th

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

Happy New Year! As I noted in my New Year’s message earlier this week, 2019 is going to be a very special year for Salus. We are celebrating 100 years of professional innovation, creativity and advocacy of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry that has defined and will continue to define how the optometric profession is practiced not only in the United States, but internationally. These accomplishments, driven by a talented pool of faculty, students, alumni and others have created a legacy and heritage we can all be very proud to be a part of. We will be celebrating this throughout the year, culminating with our Centennial Gala to be held on April 27th in Center City. We also will be acknowledging PCO’s accomplishments during our May commencement where Dr. Lou Catania will be providing keynote remarks. Clearly, it’s going to an exciting year!

Our campus has been relatively quiet this week as most of students are not yet back from their holiday break. Next week will be a totally different story! Taking advantage of the lull, we held our biannual University Development Day for our faculty these last couple of days. The topics of Cultural Competency and Meeting Happiness were selected by our faculty organizing committee to help get everyone in the right frame of mind as we begin this next semester.  Special thanks to Drs. Brooke Kruemmling and Missy Vitek for taking the lead on this important forum.  I’d also like to thank Dr. Gary Chu who flew in from NECO to lead the discussion on Cultural Competency with the help of Dr. Ruth Shoge, Lachelle Smith and Ken Newton who helped to set the tone for the group. I think everyone gained a great deal from the day’s event. Today we will have the opportunity to hear Rafael Perez, the CEO of Do it Better Wellness discuss “Meeting Happiness”. It should be an interesting morning!

Finally, as folks prepare to come back to campus next week, I am hoping everyone has had a chance to recharge their batteries and arrive ready to meet all the academic and other associated challenges that go along with starting a new semester. It’s going to be an action-packed year!  Enjoy the weekend, cheer on our Eagles and come in Monday ready to hit the deck running!

Mike