Optometry Global Break Room

Berkeley Optometry Assistant Clinical Professor Sarah Kochik has set up an Optometry Global Break Room on Zoom. With many of us now working from home, Dr. Kochik recognized that this presented a unique opportunity to connect with fellow educators and researchers within the professional schools, colleges and departments around the world. To facilitate these connections, Dr. Kochik set up a standing meeting on the Zoom video conferencing platform.

The idea is that optometric educators and researchers of the world can join in anytime to talk about eyes, vision, remote teaching, or bits of #covidkindness from your community. With zoom, you can set up a standing recurring meeting to do this. Anyone with the meeting invite (meeting number and password) can log in to chat.

"I got the idea from an article I read about ways to stay socially connected to co-workers while working remotely, and my husband told me that his company almost immediately set up a virtual 'break room' for people to drop by when they want to catch up or chat with co-workers for water cooler conversations," says Kochik. "That got me thinking that this could be a really cool opportunity to connect to other faculty members around the world in a way that wouldn't otherwise happen."

How to Join the Group

If you are an optometric educator or researcher and would like to join the group, please contact the Berkeley Optometry Dean's Office via email. We'd be happy to give you the link and the password.

optometrydean@berkeley.edu