BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Two professors in the Indiana University School of Optometry have been honored by the Indiana Optometric Association.
Dr. Edwin C. Marshall, professor emeritus of optometry and public health and former vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs at IU, received the Indiana Optometric Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the first presentation of this honor since 2008. Dr. Richard Meetz, clinical professor and associate dean for fiscal affairs at the IU School of Optometry, was named the organization’s inaugural Optometric Educator of the Year.
The awards were presented April 21 at the 120th Annual Convention of the Indiana Optometric Association in Indianapolis.
First awarded in 1977, the Indiana Optometric Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award is presented in recognition of contributions to optometry and the visual welfare of the public over the whole of one’s career.
At IU, Marshall served as the first director of the IU School of Optometry’s Community Eye Care Center, the school’s first off-campus clinic for underserved populations, which opened in 1973. He served as vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs from 2007 to 2013, increasing the university’s overall minority enrollment numbers.
Marshall was also the founding chair of the Indiana State Department of Health’s Minority Health Advisory Committee and vice chair of the Indiana Public Health Institute. He is a past president of the National Optometric Association, the Indiana Optometric Association and Indiana Public Health Association. He also served as a primary-care policy fellow with the U.S. Public Health Service, working on national policy issues under U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.
Marshall’s awards and recognitions include the IU President’s Medal of Excellence and the State of Indiana’s Distinguished Hoosier Award. He has also been named the 2006 Indiana Optometry Optometrist of the Year and the 2007 American Optometric Association National Optometrist of the Year and is a member of the National Optometry Hall of Fame.
Established in 2017, the Indiana Optometric Association’s Optometric Educator of the Year Award recognizes a deserving individual member educator for performance of outstanding services on behalf of the profession, optometric education and the visual welfare of the public.
At IU, Meetz served as the primary instructor and chair of the clinical track within the School of Optometry for 20 years, overseeing school’s clinical program growth, course standardization and clinical curriculum modernization. He was also the director of screening and evaluative service at the school from 1976 to 1994, directing the school’s statewide mobile clinics program, which provided eye care to thousands of children across Indiana each year; providing testimony on eye care to the state legislature; and writing the procedure manual for vision testing of children for the Indiana Department of Education.
In addition, Meetz has served as a lecturer at the IU School of Medicine-Bloomington and IU School of Education, and as an adjunct professor for IU’s optometry program in Bangkok, Thailand. He has also held multiple positions, including chief examiner, on the National Board of Examiners in Optometry.
Meetz is the recipient of 12 teaching awards, including the 2010 American Academy of Optometry’s Michael G. Harris Award for Excellence in Optometric Education.
