Mission and Vision

The Mission of UIW Rosenberg School of Optometry

The mission of the University of the Incarnate Word Rosenberg School of Optometry is to educate and prepare future leaders in optometry through excellence in education, patient care, and vision research. This is achieved in an environment committed to personal growth within a context of faith, human dignity and social justice.

Purposes and Objectives of UIW Rosenberg School of Optometry

Purpose:

To foster an effective and integrative learning-centered environment that provides opportunities for intellectual, personal and professional growth for students, staff and faculty; implementing innovative educational programs enabling graduates to possess entry level standards for the contemporary practice of optometry.

Objectives:

  • Recruit and retain exceptional faculty
  • Nurture tenets of lifelong learning and educational curiosity
  • Integrate advanced technologies into the education process
  • Ensure current and continuously updated lecture and laboratory content
  • Promote faculty mentoring for each student
  • Develop critical thinking by incorporating higher levels of learning such as application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation
  • Promote, facilitate and reward faculty continuing education, learning, and professional development to ensure that the most current knowledge is presented to the students
  • Incorporate virtual learning technologies into the educational strategies
  • Increase faculty development opportunities for active and collaborative learning, service education, integration of social justice and other innovative strategies used in teaching
  • Embrace religious and cultural diversity within the profession of optometry and the broader community
  • Provide information technology training for faculty, staff, and students
  • Develop pathways to maximize exposure to diverse clinical educational experiences for each student
  • Coordinate a system of accountability and intervention whereby each student has the opportunity to reach his or her educational and professional potential
  • Provide a broad spectrum of patient encounters and practice modalities to the students and faculty
  • Construct a pathway for personal growth and development as an integral piece of the four-year curriculum and facilitate regular student contact with the tenets of the UIW Mission as well as regular contact with Ministry representatives
  • Incorporate current knowledge and ongoing advances in genomics in didactic and clinical instruction

Purpose:

To provide culturally sensitive, patient-centered, comprehensive, and accessible vision care in an integrated clinical curriculum.

Objectives:

  • Optimize the development of clinical skills and critical thinking in all clinical personnel
  • Establish initiatives to develop and enhance good clinical practice in all clinical personnel
  • Emphasize the application of evidence-based clinical standards of care
  • Create a clinical environment that is sensitive to the cultural and socioeconomic needs of each patient
  • Promote programs that emphasize community-based clinical eye care services
  • Develop and enhance faculty clinical skills in contemporary clinical technologies including applications of genomics in healthcare
  • Create a clinical environment whereby the mission and purpose of the educational program is fully integrated into the patient care model
  • Provide a safe, secure and confidential clinical environment

Purpose:

To foster research and scholarly activity as a foundation for exceptional clinical care.

Objectives:

  • Implement systems of recognition and support for faculty research and scholarship, including evaluation, promotion, travel grants, and sabbaticals
  • Provide direct research support such as time, space, equipment, and staff
  • Encourage and facilitate faculty participation in collaborative and externally funded research
  • Develop, support, and promote student research and scholarship
  • Promote collaborative and mentoring relationships for research and scholarly activity with other entities of higher learning, including the main UIW Campus and professional schools
  • Pursue research projects and collaborations which explore application of human genomics, proteomics and/or glycomics to prediction and prevention of visual conditions and ocular disease

Purpose:

To enable and support faculty, students and staff to nurture, sustain, and further the mission of the University in serving the local and broader communities of South Texas.

Objectives:

  • Promote student and faculty leadership in service and mission activities, to include vision and health care screenings
  • Incorporate ethics, social justice, and service learning into the optometric curriculum
  • Foster an understanding and appreciation of diversity and cultural sensitivity
  • Plan and implement an infrastructure for disaster relief initiatives
  • Serve as a knowledgeable vision care resource to the broader community
  • Provide a public service to the University of the Incarnate Word community: administration, faculty, students, alumni, high schools, elementary schools, assisted living, and Sisters of Charity
  • Emphasize the active participation in service, non-profit, faith-based, and professional organizations
  • Appreciate the responsibility of giving back to the community as respected members of society