The College of Optometrists

The newest course in optometry was established in Cambridge at what was then the Anglia Polytechnic University (APU) in 1998. It was set up just three years after the course in Coleraine which had been the first new course in the subject for nearly half a century. This says a lot about the rapid expansion in optometry student numbers in the final quarter of the twentieth century. APU was already involved in training courses for dispensing opticians and optical management which had begun in the late 1980s.

 

The origins of the optometry course were very different from any that had preceded it. It was to be financed by a consortium of ten optical multiples, including Specsavers, working under the auspices of the Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians (FODO). FODO itself was still a relatively new organisation having been founded in 1985 by an amalgamation of the Society of Opticians, the Guild of British Dispensing Opticians and the Co-operative Optical Services.

 

The project to set up the new department was overseen by the Dean of Applied Sciences, Adrian Moore, whilst course content was developed by a panel of people including Dr Steve Taylor who had been President of the College of Optometrists in 1986-7. The intention was to take forty students per year and in the longer term there were proposals to provide courses which would permit suitably able dispensing opticians to progress to qualifications in optometry. Professor Steve Parrish (already a visiting professor in the clinical vision at Anglia's Department of Optics and Radiography) became Principal Lecturer. The first Head of Department was Professor Dan O'Leary, whom Optometry Today journal announced as being an expert in the physiology of tears. Professor O'Leary had been head of school at the University of New South Wales, Australia where there was a strong emphasis on admitting mature candidates with appropriate but perhaps non-traditional qualifications. This was seen to be in line with Anglia's policy of encouraging mixed age groups amongst its intake, which was seen as being of particular benefit to younger students in the clinical disciplines.

 

APU was awarded full university status in 1992. It traces its origins back to the Institute for Technical Education (founded 1889) and the eminent John Ruskin's School of Art established in Sidney Street, Cambridge even earlier, in 1858. This allowed it to mark its 150th Anniversary in 2008. The University renamed itself Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in 2005.

 

To find our about studying optometry at Anglia today visit their departmental website.