Upcoming International Travels: Week of February 27th

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

Greetings from a soggy, cold Elkins Park. Most of you might have noticed I was not on campus for much of the week and I am writing this from home as I was one of the “lucky" recipients of the flu. Good news is I’m pretty much on the mend but didn’t want to risk spreading this around.  

From our College of Education and Rehabilitation, Dr. Fabiana Perla presented a lecture at Moss Rehab’s Drucker Brain Injury Center Education Series entitled, “O&M Specialists: Who We Are, What We Do, and Why We Should Work Together.” The multidisciplinary audience included occupational, physical and speech-language pathology therapists and psychologists. Today Dr. Perla will be speaking at Penn State Abington to undergraduate students on "Regaining Mobility: Education and Rehabilitation for Blind and Visually Impaired Individuals." BLVS has an ongoing partnership with Penn State Abington's Electrical Engineering and Psychological and Social Sciences Departments. 

Drs. Scharre and Vitek are off to Taiwan today where they will be meeting with representatives from the nation's only optometry school. The school is interested in pursuing our Master of Science in Clinical Optometry degree, so this is the next step to determine how best to facilitate this. From there they will head to Shanghai, China, via Japan, to celebrate the accomplishments of our growing Chinese alumni base and most recent graduates. I’m looking forward to joining them for the festivities in Shanghai next week. 

As most of you know we’ve begun the search to find a new provost due to Dr. Scharre’s impending retirement. The search committee, under Dr. Mitchell Scheiman’s leadership, met for the first time this week and will now begin the process in earnest.  Search firm, Issacson-Miller has been contracted to assist us in this most important endeavor. I will keep you updated as the process continues.  

If you were on campus today and walked by the University's board room you might have noticed what looked like a radio show being produced. Well, if that’s what you thought, you were correct. Staffers from Executive Leadership Radio are on campus to produce a Salus-centric show featuring some of our Board of Trustee members to include Ms. Jane  Scaccetti, Mr. Chris Dezzi and Mr. Chip Marshall.  Also on the guest list is Richard DiPiano, Jr. son of Salus Board member Richard DiPiano, Sr. I am really disappointed that I couldn’t make it! As soon as we have the dates when this will be aired, we will share it with everyone.

As we approach the weekend, please continue to respect each other and take the time to spend with family and friends to reflect on all the good things that we have to be thankful for. For those studying for boards, keep at it!

Mike

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