Head's Report
2019 has been a very busy year for Optometry & Vision Sciences at the University of Melbourne. As can be seen from the highlights presented within this newsletter, staff and students have been extremely active in teaching and learning, research, and engagement in the broader community beyond the university.
I would like to draw your attention to two major events. Firstly, in early 2020, the department will be relocating from its current home in the Alice Hoy Building and Swanston St (UMeyecare) into a new facility at 200/202 Berkeley St, Carlton. The move will consolidate our teaching, research, clinical practice, and office space, all into a single building. The new location will place us within the university’s biomedical and hospital precinct, and will be proximate to the new Parkville station being built as part of the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel project. Some further details and a few preliminary visuals are presented later in the newsletter in the UMeyecare report. We are excited by the new opportunities that the move will bring and look forward to welcoming you to see the new facilities by mid 2020.
The second event to highlight is the upcoming 50th Anniversary for the Department of Optometry & Vision Sciences (2023). The university Department was officially formed in 1973. It is still a few years until our anniversary, however, we are commencing planning. Our new first year students in 2020 will be the graduating class of 2023. One activity that we are hoping to achieve is to tell a brief story from each graduating class (one story per week for 50 weeks in 2023). So, please send through stories, photos, copies of covers of student magazines or student society t-shirts. We need the support of all of you to enable recognition of all 50 years of optometry at University of Melbourne.
