Director of Publications

Richard W. Phillips, OD, FAAO, Inaugurated as

Southern College of Optometry President

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Saturday, October 6, 2007) – Richard W. Phillips, OD, FAAO, was inaugurated on Saturday, October 6, 2007 as the sixth president of Southern College of Optometry (SCO) in a formal ceremony held at Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis.

Dr. Howard F. Flippin, Chair of the SCO Board of Trustees, formally installed Dr. Phillips as president.

“On behalf of the SCO Board of Trustees, I want to express our sincere gratitude that you are our president,” Dr. Flippin told Dr. Phillips. “It is my great pleasure to install you in that office with all its requisite rights, privileges and responsibilities.”

In his inaugural address, Dr. Phillips addressed change as a theme and related it to the past, present and future history of Southern College of Optometry.

“Every president in the past of Southern College of Optometry took time to establish his vision of the future of optometric education and took action that to this day affects our future in optometry,” Dr. Phillips said.

Rapid changes in technology and how it relates to optometric education and the delivery of health care will be a significant focus of the future, he noted.

“As optometric educators, the future challenges us to embrace the expanded capability technology allows, (and) encourages us to increase delegation by ancillary health care personnel while retaining the high touch element that has been traditional with optometry.”

Dr. Phillips told the assembly that he will soon begin the strategic planning process to determine the institution’s future direction. “The follow-through by the family of Southern College of Optometry will determine the future success or failure,” he added.

“Let us take action together to mandate that Southern College of Optometry will be more widely known as the premier provider we have always known it to be. Success comes to those who combine vision with action, learning from the past, with eyes directed to the future. With the help of God, and this wonderful family we have assembled here today, we can not and will not fail.”

A number of delegates from other colleges and universities attended the inauguration, as well as representatives from organized optometry around the world. Official greetings to the president were delivered by representatives from the academic community, and SCO’s alumni, faculty, staff and students.

SCO President Emeritus William E. Cochran, OD, presented the SCO Mace to his successor during the ceremony. A reception immediately followed at the church to honor Dr. Phillips and his family; the invocation was delivered by G. Richard Phillips, Ph.D., father of SCO’s new president.

A former Regional Executive Director (Tennessee Operations) for TLC – Laser Eye Centers, Dr. Phillips held a number of prominent leadership positions within the optometric profession. He is a past president of the Tennessee Optometric Association, SECO International (Southern Council of Optometrists) and the Tennessee Academy of Optometry.

A 1978 SCO graduate, Dr. Phillips practiced optometry for nearly 30 years in northeastern Tennessee. In 1983, he merged practices with David Wilson, MD, marking the first OD/MD partnership in Tennessee. A Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (FAAO), Dr. Phillips was named “Optometrist of the Year” in 1998 by the Tennessee Optometric Association.

Dr. Phillips, who earned his undergraduate degree from Milligan College, is a former resident of Johnson City, Tennessee. He and his wife, Lucy, have been married 19 years. He is the father of three children, Melissa Reading, Richard and Sarah.

SCO’s new president was selected after a six-month search process led by an eight-person search committee that recommended Dr. Phillips’ appointment to the full SCO Board of Trustees.

Celebrating its 75^th anniversary in 2007, Southern College of Optometry was founded in Memphis in 1932. The south’s oldest college of optometry, SCO is an independent, not-for-profit institution of higher education with a mission to educate men and women in the art and science of optometry. The college has more than 475 students and 150 faculty and staff members.

Southern College of Optometry is one of only 17 schools and colleges of optometry in the United States. The college is a private, not-for-profit, single-purpose institution of higher learning offering the Doctor of Optometry four-year, post-baccalaureate degree.

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