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ACOE grants new Kentucky optometry school preliminary approval

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The University of Pikeville-Kentucky College of Optometry announced that the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education granted the college the pre-accreditation classification of “preliminary approval.”

According to a press release from the university, Accreditation Council on Optometric Education chairman J. Bart Campbell, OD, wrote in a letter to the college that this classification “is granted to a professional optometric degree program that has clearly demonstrated it is developing in accordance with council standards. The program has approval to begin student recruitment, selection and admissions and to begin offering the program.”

The university said in the announcement that it will begin recruiting its inaugural class for the fall of 2016.

“Sixty students will be admitted per class for a total of 240,” the university stated. “With no other colleges of optometry in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia, Kentucky College of Optometry will be the most accessible college of optometry in the Southeastern portion of the country.”

“We are the first school to receive such recognition under the new, more stringent accreditation standards, and in a record time of 1 year and 3 months from the time we initiated our self-study,” founding dean, Andrew Buzzelli, OD, MS, said in the release. “It is because of the profusely talented University of Pikeville employees that we will be working toward complying with all of the standards for final accreditation, which will be considered after graduation of our first class.”