All….
Based on our College’s current budget, I felt it was necessary to reduce future expenditures. In my view, simple increases in efficiencies and/or minor cost savings would not be sufficient to ensure that all our ongoing clinical services were sustainable. Consequently, despite the fact that our Cedar Springs Eye Clinic provides essential care for a large, underserved population and that the externship rotations through the Cedar Springs Clinic are very highly rated and desired by our students, I made the decision to close the Cedar Springs Clinic beginning the Fall 2019 semester….it was the most difficult decision that I have had to make as Dean. In particular, since we are currently interviewing candidates to take over the Deanship of our College, I thought that it was important to ensure that the new Dean would inherit a strong College and a balanced budget.
I am delighted to inform you that our College will not have to close the Cedar Springs Clinic in Dallas in 2019. Dr. Paula Short, our Provost, has put together a hiring package for the new Dean that includes an endowed chair and sufficient funding to ensure that the Cedar Springs can continue to operate at its current level.
I would like to express my gratitude to all our alumni and friends who, when learning that Cedar Springs would be closed, offered support for our College, our students, and especially the Cedar Springs Clinic. I would especially like to express my gratitude to our Cedar Springs’ faculty and staff for their patience and professionalism and I would like to apologize for the anguish that they experienced as a result of my earlier decision.
All the best….
Earl L. Smith III, O.D., Ph.D.
Dean
Greeman-Petty Professor
September 25, 2018
UH, Humana Partnership to Fund $1 Million Endowed Chair In Optometry
Humana Inc., one of the nation’s leading health and well-being companies, and the University of Houston announced today a long-term strategic partnership to train the health care leaders of tomorrow with a focus on advancing population health, improving health outcomes and expanding the use of value-based payment models. Together, the two organizations will create the Humana Integrated Health System Sciences Institute at the University of Houston, which will unite the university’s new College of Medicine, as well as the existing colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work and Optometry. A $15 million gift over 10 years from Humana will help defray start-up and operational costs for the College of Medicine, as well as fund endowed chairs for each of the five colleges.
Congratulations to Lea Hair, UHCO OPT III, and Alex Saunders, UHCO OPT III, on being selected for the 2018 AAOF Student Travel Fellowships. Lea is the recipient of the BSK Student Travel Fellowship and Alex received the Brett G. Bence Clinical Student Travel Fellowship.
Congratulations to Mr. Lyle Tate, M.S., on being selected as a Certified Appreciative Adviser. Lyle is the Program Manager for Admissions, Recruiting, and Advising for UHCO and has been part of the team for five years. This selection is a coveted process through the Appreciative Advising Institute (AAI). The whole concept of the AAI is student focused and goal oriented and works through six phases of advising: Disarm, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, and Don’t Settle.
UHCO is pleased to congratulate the recipients of the 2018 American Academy of Optometry Student Travel Fellowship Awards. UHCO recipients are Jakaria Mostafa, Ananya Datta, OD, Ashley Nguyen, Khob Bhandari, BOptom, Ashutosh Jnawali, and Sudan Puri, OD. These travel fellowships will allow students to attend Academy 2018 San Antonio, November 7-10, 2018.
Deborah Otteson, Ph.D, a cell and developmental neurobiologist at UHCO, was recently featured in Science Magazine. The new work is part of a long effort to regenerate photoreceptors, neurons in the retina that transform incoming light into electrical signals. Click below to read more on this innovative research. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/eye-regeneration-technique-lets-blind-mice-see-light
