Throughout his diverse career, Dr. Irvin Borish saw the need for a facility which could offer practitioners, researchers, and industry the opportunity to contribute to the scientific literature of clinical research. Thus, he funded the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research--"an entity to develop a premier clinical vision research center that attracts scholars and researchers from around the world; provides an infrastructure that promotes innovative and challenging clinical investigations; provides development of clinical research in vision; encourages multidisciplinary approaches; and develops strong relations with the university, governmental agencies, industry, professional organizations, practitioners, and the public." The Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research was officially dedicated on Wednesday, October 11, 1995.

Under the co-direction of Dr. Gerald Lowther (Dean of the IU School of Optometry) and Dr. P. Sarita Soni (then Associate Dean for Research of the school) from 1995 to 2006, at least 61 separate projects had been undertaken. Among the projects have been studies on contact lens wear (including the national keratoconus investigation); orthokeratology, tear analysis and visual performance of bifocals; efficacy of new, progressive spectacle lens designs; efficacy of new bifocal contact lens designs; concepts of improved optical performance, glaucoma detection, and improving reading for those with macular degeneration. Dr. Ann Elsner (Professor at the school) is serving a 2-year appointment as director of the center through June 2008. She has assumed responsibility for the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research at a critical time when there is a national need for translational research programs and when the center can play a role in the IU Life Sciences initiative.

The Borish Center provides exciting opportunities for undergraduate, professional, and graduate students to participate directly in vision research. Students can work with faculty to study and solve important questions related to vision disorders or diseases that confront vision care providers on a daily basis. Creating research experience for students was one fundamental reason for establishing the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research.

Irvin Max Borish O.D. (Northern Illinois College of Optometry, 1934) L.L.D. (Indiana University, 1968) Professor Emeritus of Optometry

[August 24, 1996]     Dr. Irvin M. Borish is one of the international optometric community's most celebrated citizens, renowned for distinguished contributions in virtually every facet of the profession. His accomplishments are many--educator (visiting faculty member at virtually every United States and Canadian school of optometry and numerous foreign ones), author (over 85 articles and nine textbooks, one of which, Clinical Refraction, is in its third edition and fifth printing); lecturer (at major conferences in the United States, Canada, and over 45 other countries); inventor (five patents in the contact lens field); and practitioner (one of the nation's most successful optometric practices for over 30 years). In addition, he has been consistently involved in the political and sociological concerns of the profession, as coauthor of the first Manual of Accreditation for the Council on Education; as cofounder of the Council on Clinical Care and coauthor of its Manual of Accreditation; as coauthor of the bylaws and constitutions and member of the founding committees of the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry, the Ophthalmic Research Institute, and the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers. He also served as the Chair of the Special Commission which established the use of paraoptometric personnel and on numerous major state and national committees concerned with the scope of practice, student procurement, manpower, and curriculum and education. He played a significant role in the ad hoc committee and subsequent national conferences which instituted the reversal of the non-drug status of optometric practice.

Dr. Borish began his esteemed career by serving for 10 years on the faculty of the Northern Illinois College of Optometry, from which he had graduated in 1934, assuming the positions of director of clinics, assistant dean, and registrar. In 1944 he opened a practice in Kokomo, Indiana. He was a member of the initial committee that founded the School of Optometry at Indiana University. After its inauguration in 1953, he commuted from Kokomo to serve as a visiting faculty member. In 1972 he turned his practice over to his four younger associates and assumed a full-time position at Indiana University as professor of optometry, serving as director of patient care and teaching courses in clinical procedures and contact lenses until his retirement in 1982, when he became a professor emeritus. In 1982 he was appointed to the first endowed chair in an optometric institution, the Benedict Chair, at the University of Houston. Dr. Borish remained at the University of Houston until 1987. Upon his departure, the university established the Irvin M. Borish Endowed Chair in Optometric Practice.

In 1988 Dr. Borish and his wife, Bea, retired to Deerfield Beach, Florida. But retirement has not stopped his activity. Since his move, while continuing activity with the American Academy of Optometry, serving on the admissions committee of the National Academy of Practice in Optometry and on the boards of the American Optometric Foundation and the Ophthalmic Research Institute, he has maintained a lecture schedule in this country and in Europe and Israel, authored over ten articles, and contributed chapters and sections to three textbooks while coauthoring a special text on optometry commissioned for translation in Chinese. He was involved in the revision with coauthor Clifford Brooks of Systems of Ophthalmic Dispensing and with Dr. W.J. Benjamin in the editing and writing of a follow-up volume of Clinical Refraction.

Nor has this move halted his honors. In 1988 he was awarded a Resolution of Commendation by the mayor and city council of Houston for bringing credit to the City of Houston. Also in 1988 he was named honorary president of the fourth International Conference on Presbyopia held in Marrakech, Morocco--an honor which was repeated at the fifth International Conference in Nice, France. In 1990 he was presented with the Certificate of Recognition by Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. Along the way, Dr. Borish has been granted five honorary degrees and has been honored by almost every organization within the profession. He holds the distinction of being the first to have been awarded both the American Optometric Association's highest awards, the Apollo Award and the Distinguished Service Award. Medals bearing his name are awarded each year to outstanding clinical students at accredited schools by the American Optometric Foundation and the American Academy of Optometry. An award was established in his and his wife's name for outstanding research contribution to optometric knowledge, also given by the American Academy of Optometry. In 1982 he was named among the 12 "Distinguished Practitioners" who formed the basis for the Optometric Section of the National Academy of Practice, (comprised of the outstanding practitioners among all professions involved in health care delivery).

In addition to the above honors, he has also received the William Feinbloom Award of the American Academy; the Max Schapero Memorial Lecture Award of the section on Cornea and Contact Lenses of the American Academy of Optometry; the Contact Lens Person of the Year Award from the Section on Contact Lenses of the AOA; The Distinguished Service Awards of the Indiana Optometric Association and the Southern Council of Optometry; the Lifetime Achievement Award of the New England Council of Optometry (its only award) and of the Indiana Optometric Association; the Vision Science Award of the Heart of American Congress; the Benjamin Franklin Award of the Alumnae Association of the State University of New York; the Golf Medal of Beta Sigma Kappa; the first award of the optometric education of the Prentice Society; and the Joseph Dallas Award of the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers, as well as numerous others from state, school, and industry groups throughout the world.

While Dr. Borish has been dedicated to establishing optometry as an academic discipline that creates new knowledge via research, his wife Bea has been his constant supporter. Without doubt, all the hours he spent and continues to spend on writing, research, and preparation and delivery of presentations are time that Mrs. Borish willingly contributed to the profession. She shares the concern and dedication to professional advancement which has marked both of their involvements, and her enthusiasm and active involvement at his side at the various conferences attended have earned a uniquely de facto position within the profession.

In 1994 the faculty of the Indiana University School of Optometry voted unanimously to name its new center for ophthalmic clinical research after Dr. Borish.

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My Dear Professional and Academic Colleagues and Friends,

Optometry, when I entered it, had been legally in existence for only one third of its present life span. It was a raw, nascent calling, with elementary qualifications, a haphazard educational system, and limited entitlements. It was critically purveyed, when not ignored, by government, the military, health insurance systems, and health-field commentators and publications.

That the public's appraisal of one's vocation, along with race, nationality, religion, and economic capacity, is prominent in estimating our individual status among our fellows may have been the major stimulus that goaded our continued endeavors to move Optometry toward a societal identity more equivalent to that of its longer-established, fellow health care professions.

Charles Sheard cautioned, as I have repeated before, that Optometry would never "make it" (that is, achieve such equivalency) until it earned the respect of its peers. Such respect, he felt, depended on continuous presentation of researched applicable material at an impressive level and quantity.

Indiana Optometrists so readily accepted the concept that equivalent status was essentially dependent upon the achieved academic standing of our profession, that, almost a half century ago, their concerted effort to establish the present program in optometry at Indiana University is still cited in Indiana legislative history.

Teaching and honing of techniques are aimed at perfecting students' facility and proficiency. This realm of preparation is enhanced by research.

Initially, most optometry schools were, and some may still be, technical institutes, concentrating on perfecting techniques. The establishment of the IU School of Optometry increased the overall capacity for vision research, among Optometric institutions.

Indiana University can take great pride in its contributions to our profession. A number of its graduates are or have been deans and presidents of fellow educational institutions. Others have been named as national optometrist of the year. And, only two individuals who have been awarded both the Apollo Award and the Distinguished Service Award of the American Optometric Association, and the first two living members to be elected to the newly established Optometric Hall of Fame are both connected to Indiana University.

While Optometry has increased its number of graduate research facilities, particularly in the realm of pure visual science, it still remains behind ophthalmology, in the publication of specific clinical research.

Thus, Indiana developed a center for ophthalmic research--an entity to develop a premier clinical vision research center that would attract scholars and researchers from around the world; provide an infrastructure that would promote innovative and challenging clinical investigations; provide development of clinical research in vision; encourage multidisciplinary approaches; and develop strong relations with the university, governmental agencies, industry, professional organizations, practitioners, and the public.

During the five years since its formation, under the co-direction of Drs. Gerald Lowther, Dean of the School of Optometry, and P. Sarita Soni, Associate Dean of Research of the School, and under the co-support of the School of Optometry and the Research and Graduate School Division of the University, at least 41 separate projects have been undertaken. These include studies on contact lens wear, including the national keratoconus investigation; orthokeratology, tear analysis and visual performance of bifocals; efficacy of new, progressive spectacle lens designs; concepts of improved optical performance, glaucoma detection, and improving reading for those with macular degeneration. A number of submissions have been made for outside funding from major agencies, and details of these projects are outlined in this publication.

Meanwhile, the endowment development program has reached a consequential percentage of its objective of one million dollars.

A significant indication of the effect of the Center is expressed in a letter to me from the Associate Dean for Research of the University, Dr. Jeffrey R. Alberts:

"On Thursday, April 15, 1999, Dr. Larry Thibos of the Indiana University School of Optometry and the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research appeared as the Distinguished Faculty Research Lecturer. He delivered a wonderful, up-to-date and even futuristic lecture (which) embodied the interplay between basic research and applied knowledge. It was a model of original, systemic inquiry. It was also a very impressive representation of the value of the Borish Center, and I think you would have been proud and gratified. We regret you were unable to attend, but I want you to know your support of the center is paying dividends in the creation of new knowledge and in the enrichment of life for many people through education. The Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture is one of IU's most prestigious forms of recognition. It is relatively uncommon for a faculty member from a professional school to be chosen for this honor. I suspect that the existence of the Borish Center has made more possible such important changes in our campus culture."

I wish to express to each of you my sincerest appreciation for your help in establishing and supporting the Center for Ophthalmic Research. I humbly submit my personal thanks to my academic colleagues, my fellow practitioners, my friends, and my compatriots in the industry. First, for honoring me by attaching my name to the Center, and more importantly, for helping provide so momentous an avenue, as suggested by Dean Albert's letter, for advancing our persistent struggle toward achieving peer equity.

To all of you involved in the origination, perpetuation and development of the Center, my heartfelt regards and wishes . . .

Sincerely, Irvin M. Borish

Mrs. & Dr. Borish

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