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Education is critical to improved vision
care and The New England College of Optometry has a long-standing commitment to
excellence in this endeavor. However, the College is equally committed to
nurturing a research environment that will contribute to a better understanding
of the basic mechanisms of vision, the most effective approaches to treatments
for vision problems and, when possible, an understanding that leads to
prevention or cure.
The Myopia Research Center
Although the College is small compared to many other
educational institutions, its research program emulates larger universities in
ambition and scope. The establishment of the Myopia Research Center in 1995 is
a case in point. In a bold move conceived jointly by an enterprising
administration and faculty, the College has built a small but world-class
research center dedicated to advancing the knowledge and treatment of myopia.
In so doing, the College is responding to a worldwide need to deal with the
pandemic spread of this source of visual pathology. While not generally life
endangering, myopia exacts a price in visual efficiency, convenience and
treatment.
The development of such a research center would bring
credit to any major university. Its growth at a private, free-standing school
of optometry is most unusual. Moreover, while doing it, the College has
remained faithful to, and even enhanced its educational programs for
optometrists, those first-line practitioners of primary care in vision and
ocular pathology.
This ground-breaking center has raised teaching and
research standards throughout the College and has brought prestige in a number
of areas. It has led to both an expansion and an upgrading in terms of
influence and federal funding. In the early years when the center was being
established, leading researchers from major universities who shared this vision
for a new research center joined the faculty, which quickly established the
College as a leader in myopia research. Their quest for research support has
been responsible for impressive growth in federal funding over the past 10
years.
The College’s researchers, with the support of the
administration, have also developed joint research programs with colleagues at
major universities in the U.S. and abroad. In addition, several faculty members
and administrators act as reviewers for foreign government granting agencies
and have visited other countries as consultants for planning national research
strategies. Much of this influence came into focus when The New England College
of Optometry co-hosted the Eighth International Conference on Myopia in July
2000, which was attended by 200 researchers from 17 countries.
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