|
||
Years in the planning, the new health sciences and human performance building is taking shape at last. Things are now moving along so rapidly that the official groundbreaking ceremony took place on October 23-nearly a month after work on the site began. The new facility should be substantially completed by this time next year and ready for partial occupancy in the spring semester 1999. "It was time," says School of Health Sciences and Human Performances Dean Richard Miller '69, M.S. '71. "We'd been thinking about facilities expansion for a long time --- since the late 1980s. Our student enrollment has grown, largely because few other undergraduate programs in the country have the dimensions we have. And now we'll be way ahead of the pack. The new facility will enhance our already excellent national reputation as a leader in undergraduate health science education."
A cutting-edge computer center includes a physical therapy learning lab, an open lab area for use by all students, and two classrooms. "The computer and technology center will be accessible during the evenings, too, so that students can practice the technological skills they've learned in classes," says Janet K. Wigglesworth, assistant professor of exercise and sport sciences.
A physical disabilities lab will help students develop skills needed to assist the recovery of physically disabled adults; it also has a specially appointed "activities of daily living" area with a kitchen, bathroom, laundry area, and beds, where students can experience firsthand the challenges faced by handicapped individuals in living independently. Other spaces are earmarked for a neuromuscular lab, modalities lab, and multipurpose lab with kiln, in which students learn splinting and therapeutic use of crafts, among other skills.
|
||
 |
State of the Sciences
Four stories and 90,000
square feet, the facility will incorporate the latest computer-assisted
instructional technologies with learning laboratories and therapy clinics.
New teaching labs for occupational therapy
and physical therapy are truly state-of-the-art. A pediatric lab will have
sensorimotor movement equipment to help children develop coordination, balance,
and sensory processing as they play. "About a third of occupational
therapists work with kids," says Catherine Gordon, director of occupational
therapy, "so that will be a well-used lab."
A distance-learning classroom will allow
faculty and students on the Rochester and Ithaca sites to interact effortlessly.
"We'll be using cameras, monitors, and a sophisticated projection unit
to transmit images and sound between the campuses-so that instructors can
teach a class here, even if they're in Rochester," says Michael Pagliarulo,
associate professor and chair of the physical therapy department. Telecommunicating
with other sites around the country will also be possible.
