Optometry students eligible for Optometry Cares grants

St. Louis-Third-year optometry students (class of 2015) are encouraged to submit an essay for each of the two scholarships administered though Optometry Cares, The AOA Foundation: the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant, and the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant, sponsored by Vision West, Inc., a national eyecare business group offering optometric business services to its members.


The winner of the 2014 Dr. Seymour Galina Grant will receive an award of $2,500. There are two awards for the 2014 InfantSEE Scholarship Grant: the student with the winning essay will be awarded $5,000, while the runner-up will receive $2,500. Criteria for the two scholarships are listed below.

An applicant for the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant must:


Be a third-year student member (class of 2015) in good standing in the American Optometric Student Association (AOSA) and the American Optometric Association (AOA)

Be a student in good academic standing in his or her school or college of optometry

Submit a paper, written in English, not to exceed 1,500 words on the following topic

Qualities I have developed through my financial planning/work experience during and/or before optometry school, that I believe will be most useful to me in a professional optometric practice.

An applicant for the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant must:

Be a third-year student member (class of 2015) in good standing in the AOSA and the AOA

Be a student in good academic standing in his or her school or college of optometry

Submit a paper, written in English, not to exceed 1,000 words. This paper needs to address each of the following topics:

What have you done as a student to prepare yourself to become an active participant as an InfantSEE provider?

How have your clinical experiences directly contributed to your development as a future participant in the InfantSEE program and how you will translate these experiences into clinical practice as an InfantSEE provider?

What do you see as the major challenges to providing optometric care to infants and how would you overcome these challenges?

Describe how you would personally promote the InfantSEE program and what you envision the most effective method of marketing the importance of infant vision as an entry point into a lifetime of eye care at a state and national level.

Interested applicants for these scholarships must check with the Student Affairs Office to determine their institution’s on-campus deadline to submit the appropriate materials for consideration. From the applications received, each school and college will select one candidate for the Dr. Seymour Galina Grant and one candidate for the InfantSEE Scholarship Grant. Institutions will forward the individuals’ names and essays to Optometry Cares in St. Louis by Jan. 13, 2014. The winners for the scholarships will be announced in 
May 2014.

For scholarship application documents and more information about each scholarship’s criteria, visit www.aoafoundation.org.