Closure of the Centre for Active Living (CAL) Announced

The Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation is not immune to budget cuts affecting post-secondary institutions across Alberta, and these cuts have forced the Faculty to make some difficult choices.

As a knowledge translation organization, the Centre for Active Living (CAL) has supported physical activity professionals with information, resources, and educational opportunities for just over 31 years. Due to a lack of funding, the Faculty has made the hard budget-driven decision to cease operation of the Centre for Active Living on June 30, 2021.

Over the years, CAL initiated, developed, or hosted a variety of projects and tools that were used by professionals to increase physical activity among Albertans. There are too many to list completely, but some of these were:

• Canada 125
• Wellness Wagon
• Health in Action
• Home Support Exercise Program
• Physical Activity @ Work, a portal website
• Videos such as Stretching @ Your Desk and Yoga @ Your Desk
• Rural Route to Active Aging, a portal website
• Healthy U
• Physical Activity Counselling Toolkit, in 6 languages
• UWALK
• Increasing Physical Activity and Decreasing Sedentary Behaviour in the Workplace, a systematic review
• Benefits of Active Transportation, a fact sheet
• Physical Activity for Decision-makers, infographic in 4 languages
• Alberta Workplace Audit Toolkit

These resources have always been free and will continue to live on our website here as long as the domain remains active.

Staff at the Centre for Active Living have provided exceptional work for the past 31 years not only within the Faculty but to practitioners across Alberta and Canada. We are grateful for their service and commitment as the only such organization in Canada to reach and translate physical activity knowledge.

We will work with stakeholders to minimize the impact of this closure. We regret that provincial cuts have forced this situation. As we face the substantial budget implications ahead, please know that we are doing our best to maintain our excellence in teaching, research and innovation.

This has not been an easy decision to make, but the lack of funding makes it impossible to continue the Centre for Active Living operations. A special thank you Nora Johnston, Director of CAL and the team of staff that made the Centre such a success over the last 31 years.

Kerry

W. Kerry Mummery, PhD, FASMF
Professor and Dean
Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation
University of Alberta