Dr. Keshia Elder Becomes Nation’s First Black Female Optometry School Dean at UMSL | Local News

Born and raised in a S. Carolina home with two elementary school teachers as parents, Keshia S. Elder and her siblings had little choice but excel academically.

“Education was very important in my family. My parents expected us to do well,” Elder recalled. “It wasn’t an issue of if we were going to college but where we were going to college.”

It seems that the parental mandate of academic excellence paid off. As of the first of this month, Dr. Keshia S. Elder, will serve as the Dean of the College of Optometry at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL). Elder is the first African American female in the nation to lead a school of optometry.

The accolade is a bit bittersweet.

“From the perspective that it’s 2022 and this milestone should have happened a long time ago, it’s disappointing that it took this long. But Elder added humbly: “I’m glad it has finally happened. It will show others that there’s definitely an opportunity for them to do the same thing.”

Elder’s path to the role she now serves should serve as inspiration to any high school student who’s unsure about their ultimate academic desire.

“I always liked math and science so, I always knew that I’d go into an area that was sciencey,” Elder joked, explaining how she earned her undergraduate degree in science teaching secondary math at S. Carolina’s Clemson University.  Like her parents, she thought she wanted to teach, which she did for a short time at a high school in Columbia S. Carolina. Although she liked teaching, she didn’t feel it was going to be her career choice. She decided to instead pursue a master’s degree in actuarial science (a discipline that uses mathematical and statistical methods to assess financial risks).

It didn’t take her long to realize that the life of an actuary didn’t suit her either.

Also at Clemson, Elder attended an optometry workshop.  She remembered how she and a friend drove to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Optometry (UABSO) to check out their program. Elder found the field of optometry fascinating on many levels.

“It’s just really, really cool,” Elder gushed. “When you’re talking about eye care, you’re, of course, talking about helping people see better. Vision and sight are very important to people having a productive life.

“But also, by looking at someone’s eyes, you can tell if someone has high blood pressure, diabetes, certain autoimmune diseases…you can just learn a lot about people’s health by looking in their eyes.”

Elder was so impressed that she took the school’s optometry admissions test. She did well and was invited to enroll at the university.

Elder’s career trajectory took off even before she graduated UAB’s School of Optometry. Through another career workshop, she was exposed to military benefits. The Navy, she learned, offered a scholarship that would pay for her last three years of optometry school and reimburse her for books and equipment. Dr. Melvin Shipp, the first African American to join UABSO’s faculty in 1976, was in the Navy Reserves at the time and wrote a recommendation letter for Elder. She joined in 1998 and quickly ascended to assistant head optometrist at the Naval Medical Clinic in Annapolis, MD. Elder was quick to humorously downplay the accomplishment.

“There were only two optometrists there, so it’s not as good as it sounds.”

Elder met her husband, Keith while attending optometry school and the two were married in 1999. Elder signed up for another two-year stint with the Navy and served at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2003.

She moved back to S. Carolina after her husband completed his PhD and got a job with the department of public health. Elder, who was out of the Navy by then, went to work for Pearle Vision knowing it wasn’t a position she wanted permanently.

In 2004, Elder entered the world of academia at the University of South Carolina’s School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology where she held assistant and associate professor roles as a faculty member. She joined the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) in 2011 before returning to UABSO in 2016.

Even after earning multiple degrees, Elder continued to push herself. She took an online course and won a degree in diversity, equity, and inclusion and, by 2020, became UABSO’s first director of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Although optometry is her chosen field, “diversity work,” based on her own experiences, is also a passion.

“I have an understanding of how much grit and determination it takes to be successful. It’s hard when you feel alone all the time,” Elder explained, adding: “Because I know how it feels, I really work to make sure the world of optometry looks like the people we serve. I want everybody-not just minorities-no matter what you look like, your religion, your creed, your gender, or sexual orientation-I want everybody to be able to come to school, go to the clinics, be a faculty or staff member and just be their authentic selves.”

Elder, in an August 31 interview with the St. Louis Business Journal, spoke about the importance of institutions to “walk the talk,” stressing the importance that faculty, staff and students represent the people optometrists will eventually serve.

“The only way that we can really change the face of the profession is by making sure that we have a diverse representation of the profession within our schools and colleges of optometry,” Elder said.

As Dean of UMSL’s College of Optometry Elder said she plays the dual role as an example of inclusion and a facilitator of all-around diversity.

“To change the face of optometry, you have to get more students to enter the field and graduate and become optometrists and become faculty members. They play a large role in recruiting students and helping make sure they graduate. Sometimes it just takes someone saying, ‘You know what, you’ll be great as a faculty member.

“It is my responsibility as an African American optometrist and as a dean to make sure I identify these students, minority or not. As the faculty mirrors the population more and more, students will see people who look like them so they feel they can do it also.

As Dean, Elder has a simple yet profound list of priorities: Graduating more outstanding optometrists; Moving the profession forward; Broadening the university’s research capacities. While doing all those things and more, Elder stressed, she wants to ensure they are “developing and molding and cultivating a diverse optometry environment with our staff, students, faculty and with our patients. It’s important, Elder said adding:

“Because with diversity, there’s strength.”

Sylvester Brown Jr. is The St. Louis American’s inaugural Deaconess Fellow.