On Sept. 8, Thompson Center faculty and staff were joined by members of the Mizzou and Columbia community to celebrate the grand opening of the new Thompson Center Research & Training Facility.
Dr. Stephen Kanne, executive director of the Thompson Center, was joined by MU Chancellor Alexander Carwright and Provost Garnett Stokes along with Columbia Chamber of Commerce ambassadors for a ribbon cutting ceremony.
Thanks to $5 million in state support, the Thompson Center was able to purchase the new facility, located next door to the original Thompson Center building, in order to double the Thompson Center’s physical footprint. This will allow Center faculty and staff to greatly increase the amount of life-changing research and training programs they can accomplish.
Before this new building, the Thompson Center research division often had to work around the Center’s incredibly busy clinic schedule in order to find rooms to conduct studies with patients with autism and other disorders.
This new, dedicated space will allow Thompson Center researchers to greatly increase their research production and recruit the top minds in the autism field to join the Thompson Center. The new space also will increase the opportunities for Mizzou students to learn and perform research at the Thompson Center. Also, this building will open up clinic space, increasing the amount of patient care Thompson Center clinicians can provide.
Likewise, increasing the amount of training space will greatly expand how many people around the state and nation that can receiving training on best practices for autism care from Thompson Center experts. The new space will be able to host hundreds of parents, teachers, medical professionals, psychologists and others every year in this new space, taking what is learned in the research and clinical divisions of the Thompson Center and sharing it with the world.