{"id":11342,"date":"2011-08-17T10:25:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T15:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=11342"},"modified":"2011-08-16T14:45:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T19:45:23","slug":"new-dean-likes-brocks-small-town-university-feel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/08\/new-dean-likes-brocks-small-town-university-feel\/","title":{"rendered":"New dean likes Brock’s “small-town university feel”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Neil

"I like that it treats students as more than just numbers in seats," says Neil McCartney, new Dean of Applied Health Sciences, of Brock.<\/p><\/div>\n

Neil McCartney has a lot of aspirations as the new Dean of Applied Health Sciences<\/a>. But on a personal level, he hopes he\u2019s a nice guy to work with.<\/p>\n

McCartney \u2013 renowned for his research into human aging, cardiac rehabilitation and spinal cord injury \u2013 steps into a vibrant Faculty home to internationally known research. He hopes his new colleagues find him friendly and approachable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, when my time is up, I hope they say that I was a kind dean who was good to work with,\u201d said McCartney. \u201cI hope the Faculty galvanizes around the theme of enjoying coming to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was drawn to Brock, he said, for \u201cthe small-town university feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always heard nice things about it in terms of the atmosphere and collegiality. Everyone is friendly and accommodating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before starting at Brock on Aug. 1, McCartney spent his academic career at McMaster University, where he developed a reputation as an accomplished researcher. A native of England, he earned a PhD from McMaster in 1983 and started as a faculty member there the same year.<\/p>\n

McCartney was the director of McMaster\u2019s Centre for Health Promotion and Rehabilitation<\/a>, and is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation<\/a>. Other accomplishments have included a provincial appointment to the Transitional Council of the College of Kinesiologists of Ontario<\/a>, where he served as vice-president. He has also co-authored and contributed chapters to 10 books, and has been a lead or contributing researcher for more than 80 journals.<\/p>\n

His research has been funded by the Arthritis Society, the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation and the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, among others. Some of his most well known work has dealt with physical activity in cardiac patients. Historically, cardiac patients were told to avoid lifting weights. McCartney\u2019s research was pivotal in the discovery that weight training could actually help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey used to tell patients not to lift more than 20 pounds for the rest of their lives,\u201d McCartney said. \u201cImagine hearing that as a 38-year-old. We were instrumental in changing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCartney plans to do a curriculum review and encourage interdisciplinary collaborative research. He would also like to see more partnerships with McMaster to develop centres of excellence.<\/p>\n

When not at work, McCartney is a “passionate fisherman” with “a fishing boat and too much tackle and not much time to use it.\u201d His wife, Jenny, is a champion whippet breeder who has shown the dogs around the world. He also has two sons.<\/p>\n

His first two weeks at Brock have been busy, he said, but he\u2019s enjoyed them.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opinion about Brock has been reinforced since I\u2019ve been here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Related story:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Mac researcher to become Brock\u2019s new Dean of Applied Health Sciences<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil McCartney takes the helm of Brock’s Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[28,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11345,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11342\/revisions\/11345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}