PERFORM Centre officially opens
Concordia’s new PERFORM Centre officially opened its doors on November 4 to much excitement and fanfare. Provincial and federal politicians as well as members of Concordia’s Board of Governors were on hand in the gymnasium of the Loyola Campus to introduce PERFORM along with the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics.
During the inauguration ceremony, Senator Larry Smith spoke about the importance of innovation and research in the knowledge economy. “Innovation is about people and minds coming together,” said Smith. “With the creation of these centres, Concordia will play an important role in producing groundbreaking research that will lead to enhanced productivity.”
After hearing from Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s minister of immigration and cultural communities and member of the national assembly for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Concordia President Frederick Lowy officially launched the centres through Concordia’s first virtual ribbon cutting ceremony.
Guests were then invited to tour the centre where they were given a first-hand look at the state-of-the-art facilities housed in PERFORM. “When people see our complement of equipment and facilities and how they tie into research, teaching and community engagement, they get really excited about the potential of the centre,” says Kevin Little, PERFORM’s chief administrative officer. “PERFORM is going to put Concordia front and centre when it comes to developing new and better ways of approaching rehabilitation, nutrition and decisions leading to healthier lifestyles.”
The event also attracted widespread coverage in the local media. Beyond getting tours of the centre’s facilities, a few brave journalists tried out some of the equipment to test their personal fitness levels. CBC Daybreak’s Douglas Gelevan tried the centre’s Technogym weight training equipment, located on the conditioning and rehabilitation floor, before taking a cardiac stress test in PERFORM’s cardiopulmonary suite.
“Hooking up a journalist to a metabolic cart where we could measure the heart and lung function was a great way to link fitness with PERFORM’s education and research components,” explains Marion Lowe, the centre’s clinical exercise programs manager.
The creation of the centre was made possible through a $35-million investment from the Government of Canada and the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program.
Watch the video of the PERFORM Centre:
Related links:
• Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) Facilities
• The PERFORM Centre
• Le Centre
• “Making it Real” – NOW, October 24, 2011
• "Watching and Learning" – NOW, September 28, 2011
• "Back to Work ... and Play" – NOW, September 15, 2011
• "More Than Just a Workout" – NOW, September 7, 2011