This Fall saw the culmination of many months of planning for our 50th Anniversary celebration weekend, and thanks to the support of our alumni, friends and corporate partners, it was a great success!
The School of Optometry & Vision Science celebrated many award winners in 2017, not only for students, staff, and faculty, but also through our expanded alumni awards this year. The School is pleased to provide recognition to our valued awardees!
On Friday, June 29th during the 2017 CAO Congress, the School of Optometry & Vision Science was pleased to announce the recipients of the 50th Anniversary Distinguished Alumni of Honour Awards in front of over 500 practitioners from across the country.
In the early sixties, the College of Optometry of Ontario, Canada’s only English speaking Optometry program, was held in only two modest buildings at 138 and 140 St George Street, in the heart of Toronto.The reality was that the St. George Street buildings were bursting at the seams as 4 years of an optometry program within a space measuring only 15,600 square ft. Back then, the full-time faculty only included three; Dean Ted Fisher, Walwyn Long, and Clair Bobier. Later joined by William Lyle, the first of the faculty to have a PhD. Soon the program received the right to provide the Doctor of Optometry degree and so the next step was to seek a location within a university.
The School of Optometry & Vision Science was excited to receive a new Toyota Sienna van thanks to the generosity of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) with plants in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario. The new van will be used to support the School’s vision outreach program which helps patients who are under-served and focuses on the vision care needs of children, families, seniors and persons with special needs.
The first Canadian interdisciplinary weekend vision rehabilitation conference was held at the School of Optometry and Vision Science in March 2017. By all accounts it was very successful and truly did live up to the name of being interdisciplinary. There were a total of 149 registrants including attendees who identified themselves as optometrists, ophthalmologists, opticians, orientation and mobility instructors, occupational therapists, independent living specialists (from CNIB), high tech assessors, itinerant vision resources teachers/special education consultants, CNIB national and provincial managers, counsellors, students, and University faculty members/researchers. Attendees came from almost every province across Canada and even internationally, including optometrists from the US and Hong Kong.
The School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Waterloo is pleased to present our annual continuing education program on September 22, 23 and 24, 2017, in conjunction with the School’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Don’t miss an introduction to our new Director, Dr. Stanley Woo, who arrives in July. Find also an update on the School’s current strategic planning process, and a follow-up to the first Canadian Interdisciplinary Vision Rehabilitation Conference, which was held here in March. And finally, Bill Bobier and Barb Robinson have retired this year, with a combined total of 68 years of service to the School!
Since 2011, Dr. Patricia Hrynchak, a Clinical Professor in the School of Optometry and a recipient of that School’s 2016 Distinguished Teaching Award, has been a practitioner of a teaching method known as Team-Based Learning (TBL). Developed by Larry Michaelson for teaching business students in the 1990s, TBL is an active-learning strategy that Hrynchak describes as learner-centered but instructor-led. TBL promotes deep learning, while at the same time fostering both individual and group accountability.
The Sports Vision Club (SVC), one of the newer student groups at the University of Waterloo (UW), was established in 2014 to expose optometry students to the exciting field of sports vision and provide them with experience in working with unique athlete populations. Our club aims to educate students on how they can incorporate sports vision into their own optometric practices after graduation. Since our club’s inception, SVC executives have collaborated with Dr. Kristine Dalton to organize vision screening events and seminars throughout the school year.