Fall is Almost Here: Week of September 21st

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

Hello from a cloudy, but cooler Elkins Park! Another busy week at Salus.

Yesterday, The Eye Institute staff was treated to a lunch as part of the Salus 10-year celebration. We’ll do a similar thing on the Elkins Park campus in just a few minutes. All faculty and staff are invited to join in on the fun at the Hafter Center gym from 11:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. today to celebrate Salus’ 10th.

Later today, Salus staff will attend the Stand Down South Jersey – A Veteran’s Screenings to provide screenings to homeless veterans from the New Jersey and Philadelphia area. This is part of our ongoing efforts to care for veteran’s in the greater Philadelphia area.

Please join me in congratulating Jennifer Heibel, MMS ’15, PA-C, our Physician Assistant Alumna of the Year! Ms. Heibel serves as part of the palliative medicine team at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, caring for patients with terminal illness. Last year, she founded a non-profit service, “ReMEmber” (pronounced Remember Me), which provides guidance to hospice patients in composing letters and other personalized projects as a gift to loved ones so as to “capture an unwavering expression of love that lasts beyond the final breath.” We’re so very proud of her – and all of our gifted alumni! Join us in celebrating Ms. Heibel on October 10th at the PA Alumna of the Year Award Reception.

 

In a brief, but important ceremony last Thursday afternoon, 16 students from the Master of Occupational Therapy (MSOT) Class of 2019 were inducted into Pi Theta Epsilon Delta Mu chapter, the national honor society for Occupational Therapy (OT) students. This was the fourth induction ceremony for the University’s chapter, recognized by the Association of College Honor Societies, and a program of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation. Faculty from across programs came to watch and celebrate with the inductees as they pledged their new society.

On Monday, our Board of Trustees will be on campus for their quarterly meeting. Our volunteer board members unselfishly give us a great deal of time, expertise and energy to help Salus continue to innovate and grow, in addition to supporting us financially. Please extend a hearty welcome to them if you see them walking around campus.

If you remember my talk during orientation I mentioned that I will sometimes try to make my weekly update somewhat provocative. The following may or may not be to be considered provocative to you but I’m warning you, just in case. I wanted to talk about appropriate dress while in graduate school.

I am a little concerned that our idea of dressing in the manner becoming a professional student has gotten a bit lax in the classroom and lab setting. I certainly don’t mind if students wear jeans and comfortable shoes to class and lab, however, coming to class in athletic gear (running shorts, yoga pants, athletic tops) is not in the spirit of the dress code guidelines. Performing a Google search prior to venturing into this topic I found mixed opinions on this. A couple resonated with me that I would like to share with you.

What I found was that most experts agree your appearance says a lot about you and that you are treated based on how you are perceived by others. You may think it doesn’t matter how you dress for classes and that wearing athletic gear is acceptable since everyone else does the same thing. One author suggested that if you dress like a college kid, people will continue to treat you like one. If you dress sloppily, people might think you are disorganized or that you simply do not care. The author points out that this is supported by research on social behavior from graduate students, just like you. The bottom line is to dress appropriately for your setting and remember, it is always better to overdress than under-dress! Most references suggested clean and tidy denim pants (jeans) and skirts, capri pants or shorts (excluding short shorts) and athletic shoes that are clean and in good repair would be considered appropriate for classroom and lab settings. I tend to agree.

I’m going to leave the final decision to you, as you are all adults. Nevertheless, I felt you should know my thoughts on this. Please do not be bashful about providing feedback to me on this – I would like to know what you think and would certainly be happy to hear any dissenting (and supporting) opinions on this.

This weekend we transition from summer to fall. I hope you can get out and enjoy the nice weather because before we know it, we’ll be talking about snow! Have a safe and relaxing weekend!

Mike