Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,
It’s been another busy week at Salus with most of our students completing their last set of final exams. As finals begin to wind down, there were several "finals food experiences" Monday through Wednesday outside the café and Learning Resource Center ranging from bagels to yummy sandwiches to hot beverages. Additionally, mentors from the Peer Mentoring Program gave out stress reliever goodie bags Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully, all these extras helped to ease the stress and facilitate great outcomes on the exams.
The Hafter Student Community Center gym held its first Active Educational Workshops on Wednesday, December 12, where members have the opportunity to learn about different health, fitness, nutrition and/or wellness topics in a small setting with a trainer on staff. The first was Ride & Learn – a leisurely cycle class limited to 10 participants as they learned stress management techniques.
If you haven’t had the chance to check out our new virtual tour of the campus, check it out here. We recently partnered with YouVisit, LLC – an immersive technology company that connects schools with prospective students across popular platforms via virtual reality tours to design a complete walking tour of the University’s campus, giving prospective students unlimited access to the grounds of the University that can be viewed from at home on a computer or on a mobile device. Congrats to Alexis Abate and Lesley Westerfer and their team for getting this all together.
Thanks to Dr. Lindsay Bondurant and Bob Serianni for presenting a very informative Grand Rounds presentation at The Eye Institute this morning. It was great to see the interaction between optometry, audiology and speech-language pathology. We need to have more of these interprofessional discussions within each of our programs and in the continuing education setting. Well done!
Today, in addition to everything else going on, we will be hosting State Representative Mary Jo Daley both at the Elkins Park and East Oak Lane campuses. The visit provides yet another opportunity for us to educate our state legislators about what we do at Salus. This is extremely important as the legislature takes on scope of practice bills for optometry and other professions.
Today is the annual holiday party where we get a chance to thank and recognize all of our very talented and dedicated Salus faculty and staff for the work they’ve done in support of our mission over the last year. Many of our folks will be receiving Service Awards ranging from five to thirty-five years. Reflecting on that, most, but not all, of our students weren’t even born when some of our folks started here! That puts things into perspective. The people who have been here the longest represent the shoulders all of us have been standing on as we move the University forward. I thank everyone for their hard work and dedication to the important work we do here.
Finally, I’ll be off the grid for a couple of weeks so I wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very safe and joyous holiday season.
Looking back, it’s been a pretty productive year at Salus. We’ve updated curricula in several programs, renovated classrooms, added exam rooms at The Eye Institute, dedicated the Lombardi Classroom, celebrated the 10th Anniversary of becoming a University, said farewell to several of our faculty and staff and welcomed new ones, just to name a few things from 2018. Next year we celebrate the Centennial Anniversary of our founding college, Pennsylvania College of Optometry. And what a party that will be!
So, whether you celebrated Hanukkah last week or will be celebrating Christmas or Kwanzaa, I hope you’ve taken the time to reflect on all the great things that have gone on in our small world at Salus. Our University has served as an enabler, not just for our students, but also for everyone we care for on a daily basis. Every child we see in the Philadelphia, Norristown, Abington or Jenkintown schools benefit from life-changing services that only we are providing. Having the opportunity to serve those who are less fortunate is a gift that we should cherish and be thankful for. I am grateful for the commitment of our faculty and staff and the talented students who have chosen to attend Salus. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of them for their hard work and dedication to the University. Special thanks to our alumni for your continued philanthropic support, which helps make many of the things we do possible and finally to our volunteer Board of Trustees for their time, support and invaluable guidance.
Enjoy your well-deserved time off. Spend time with family, friends and significant others. Recharge your mental batteries and get ready to hit the deck running when you return in January. Be safe and look out for one another.
Mike
