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his long-time friend and fellow Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at SUNY, Dr. Irwin Suchoff. “His research brought functional/
development vision to the level it is today.”
During Dr. Solan’s long and productive career he helped to identify functional vision as an important but generally unrecognized
factor in academic performance and encouraged vision therapy as an effective means of correcting such functional vision problems.
Joining the SUNY College of Optometry faculty in the 1980s, Dr. Solan was the director of the College’s Learning Disabilities Unit
for 11 years beginning in 1981. He formally joined SUNY’s research program in 1988, allowing him to turn his attention nearly full
time to studying developmental vision and spreading the word about vision therapy to both eye care practitioners and educators. Dr.
Solan continued to conduct research and education programs on developmental vision until well after his official retirement.
Dr. Solan was inducted into the National Optometry Hall of Fame in 2003. He was a fellow of the American Academy of
Optometry and College of Optometrists in Vision Development as well as a life member of the American Optometric Association.
“My father devoted much of his life studying the relationship between the eye and brain in order to help children overcome
difficulties in learning,” his son Mr. Lawrence Solan said in a statement about the new scholarship. “Our family is proud to initiate this
scholarship as a way of providing some assistance to optometric students who show a similar commitment.”
For more information, or to make a contribution to the Solan Memorial Scholarship fund, contact Ms. Ann Warwick, executive
director of the Optometric Center of New York at 212.938.5600 or
.
T h e O C N Y r e c e i v e d
a series of
grants last spring to assist in establishing
a unique partnership between the
College and the Bowery Mission in
New York City that will help to provide
high-quality vision care for many of the
city’s homeless population.
The Lydia Collins deForest Charitable
Trust, The Chatlos Foundation, the Ethel
Kennedy Foundation,
the
Hyde and
Watson Foundation
and the
Tides
Founda t i on
hav e each p r ov i ded
valuable funding in recent months—
totaling $30,000 in support—to help
build on an existing, volunteer
collaboration between faculty and
students at the College and the Bowery
Mission, an organization that serves
thousands of homeless New Yorkers each
Bowery Project Receives Broad Support
year. For several years student volunteers
from the College, coordinated through the
Fellowship of Christian Optometrists and
supported by the organization Hope for
New York, made semi-regular trips to the
Bowery Mission in lower Manhattan to
provide eye exams and other services,
including dispensing eyeglasses free of
charge to people served by the Mission.
These vital services often help those at the
Mission—thanks to improved eyesight—
pursue job trainingor computer classes that
will put them on a path toward recovery
and steady, gainful employment. In
addition, some patients at the Mission are
found to suffer from a variety of serious,
sight-threatening conditions such as
glaucoma or macular degeneration. Once
the team fromSUNY detects these diseases,
the patients are usually able to obtain
appropriate treatment for their conditions.
The OCNY has been actively seeking
support to help the volunteer project
grow into a formalized program that will
now include regular student rotations at
the Mission as well as provide equipment
and other assistance.
“We’re very grateful for the recent
support that we’ve received to help
develop what we expect will become
an important program for the College,”
said Dr. Richard Soden, SUNY’s vice
president for clinical affairs. “Part of our
mission as an institution is to help care
for our community and to instill a spirit
of community involvement in our students
and this program will help us do both of
those things.”
