Mission, Vision and Goals

Vision

Educating future Optometrists to be curious, compassionate and community-oriented.

Mission

To support the Optometric profession by educating future optometrists to the fullest extent of clinical scope within an interprofessional and community-oriented environment while providing care to all members of society, especially those who are underserved.

Programmatic Goals

Teaching Goal

Provide a comprehensive and broad curriculum that fully prepares students for contemporary entry-level practice and licensure upon graduation.

Teaching and Learning Objectives

• Implement and assess curriculum changes on an ongoing basis to meet the needs of students and the profession.
• Recruit and retain students with diverse backgrounds to be educated as health professionals within a culturally sensitive and educationally stimulating environment.
• Expand electronic teaching modalities, incorporating new technology as it becomes available.
• Provide expanded opportunities for active student learning through online education, interactive seminars and case-based discussions.
• Provide ongoing support for those students needing tutoring, mentoring and counseling to help them successfully complete the professional program in four years.
• Develop and implement interprofessional education opportunities.
• Recruit only those faculty applicants with residency training or significant professional practice experience to serve as clinic faculty.
• Recruit the best-qualified faculty while seeking diversity to best compliment the profile of our students and patients.

Research and Scholarship Goal

Provide support and development opportunities to enable faculty to successfully engage in scholarship and to actively participate in research.

Research and Scholarship Objectives

• Recruiting highly qualified faculty will continue as an ongoing priority to strengthen the School’s academic and scholarship programs.
• Support faculty with work time and the necessary resources to enable them to engage in innovative scholarship and research.
• Augment the university’s formalized faculty mentoring program by having select senior faculty members in the School of Optometry guide newer faculty hires in areas of teaching, scholarship and leadership.
• Provide faculty with related workshops/programs (on-campus or off-campus) to enhance their scholarship abilities and opportunities.
• Actively encourage faculty to submit for internal faculty research grants, as well as federal, foundation, and corporate funding.
• Support selected faculty to participate in national faculty development programs including ASCO Special Interest Groups, the AOA/AAO Summer Research Institute, and the ASCO Summer Institute for Faculty Development.
• Actively encourage faculty publications and presentations at national conferences, and provide resources for publication and travel.

Service Goal

Establish programs to provide eye and vision care services to the public through access and education.

Service Objectives

• Continue to identify the community needs and funding sources.
• Continue to develop effective marketing and community promotion programs to expand the patient base at the Eye and Vision Center
• Develop collaborative relationships with local health care providers to advance education and patient care.
• Promote cultural competency and empathic patient communication for interns and doctors.
• Provide outside education to groups such as health care providers, social workers, nurses, and other educators and non-profits to enhance their understanding of the importance of eye health and vision in learning.
• Expand specialty services to support the eye and vision care needs of the community.
• Continue the Children’s Vision Initiative to enable every child in the Worcester School District to be vision-ready to learn.

Patient Care Goal

Create a patient care environment that has the equipment, patient base, and experienced faculty to provide outstanding clinical education to students.

Patient Care Objectives

• Maintain current patient care facilities and replace equipment as needed.
• Acquire additional equipment that allows for state-of-the-art patient care and student learning
• Promote the Eye and Vision Center (EVC) locally via marketing efforts to improve community awareness and patients seeking care at the EVC.
• Continue to recruit Doctors of Optometry trained in specialty areas of practice to better care for patients and educate students.

Core Values

The School of Optometry embraces the MCPHS University core values, which reflect commitment to preparing competent, caring, ethical professionals deliver quality health care.

Empowerment – Encourage people around you to be their best.
Refers to measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people. The goal is to enable others, independently or collectively, to have the authority to represent their interests in a responsible self-determined way.

Inspiration – Be a role model
To stimulate in others that each person has the ability to contribute their unique talents to advancing the organization.

Optimism – Carry a positive attitude
To convey to others an expectation for favorable outcomes based on a belief that good ultimately prevails over bad outcomes.

Selflessness – Do what is best for our community of students, faculty and patients
To be guided by actions that will benefit others without consideration or expectation of personal rewards or benefits.

Courageousness – Take risks and plant seeds that can bear fruit in future years
Having self-belief and the confidence to face adversity or challenges without fear

Perseverance – Focus on achieving the desired outcomes
The effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it is difficult