A Sunny Friday the 13th: Week of April 13th

Happy Friday the 13th and greetings from a sunny and warmer Elkins Park! I think Spring has finally come – at least for part of this weekend.

On Wednesday, Salus hosted the 10th annual intercollegiate Occupational Therapy night organized by occupational therapy (OT) student representatives from each of the local Philadelphia OT and Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) programs.  The event's speaker, Stephen Kern, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, and OT faculty member at Thomas Jefferson University, spoke about his work embedding OT services within the Philadelphia non-profit organization Nationalities Service Center (NSC), a refugee and community integration center meeting the needs of newly arriving refugees, victims of human trafficking and unaccompanied children.  There were over 125 OT/COTA students at this very successful event.

As most of you know, I like to walk around the campus every day to see what’s going on. I am often struck with all the creativity and energy that is generated by our students and faculty, no matter where I am.  I was thrilled to see a combined SLP and OT class discussing education and language, which is exactly what our interprofessional educational initiatives are designed to facilitate.  I always feel a sense of pride and humility when I walk through the Learning Resource Center, Virtual Reality and Clinical Procedures labs knowing that we helped to bring these venues to campus and to see our students and faculty interacting at a level that surpasses most other institutions.  The creativity and energy generated by our faculty and students is amazing and greatly appreciated!  

One of my favorite stops is generally new construction projects we’re doing.  Seeing the progress from day to day is fun.  Our new Lombardi classroom is progressing nicely with a dedication ceremony planned for graduation week.  The new state-of-the-art classroom will enable us to bring large numbers together without having to set up the gymnasium at the Hafter Center, as well as provide a much more conducive learning environment.  I can’t wait to see it all done!


If you haven’t been over to the Hafter Center lately, I strongly encourage you to go and check out the latest ArtSisters exhibition, in the D’Arrigo Family Gallery, that focuses on colors.  There are some really beautiful and colorful works on display that will just cheer you up the moment you see them.  They’re all for sale in the event you wanted to take one home. The exhibit runs through August 26th.

I want to wish all of our Thai students and alumni สวัสดีปีใหม่ (sà-wàt-dee bpee mài) or Happy New Year.  I had the opportunity to celebrate the Thai New Year with our international students last evening and it was just a wonderful event.  Thanks to Dr. Vitek, Natalie Standig, and all of our international students for arranging this.

Tonight is the annual AOSA Quiz Bowl in the Hafter Center.  This is a wonderful event that selects who will be representing PCO in Essilor's Quiz Bowl which is held at Optometry’s Meeting in June, this year in Denver, Co. If you have some time, I encourage you to attend – it starts at 5:30 p.m. – it’s always a great deal of fun!

It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful weekend, so try to get out and enjoy the sunshine and warm weather on Saturday before the rain and cooler weather returns. 

Be safe, be respectful of each other and have fun.

Mike