Articles by author: Brock University

• Brock Rowing names new boats after successful alumni and supporters

  Thursday, October 27, 2016 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: R00229 – 26 October 2016

  The Brock University men’s and women’s rowing teams will be competing in the OUA championships in St. Catharines Oct. 28-29, but they’ll also use the occasion to christen five new boats.

  During their annual boat christening at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29 at Henley Island, Brock Rowing will honour three former Brock rowers, a longtime rowing supporter and a well-known Niagara fundraiser.

  A coxed four rowing shell will be named after Rob Jennings, a former Brock University rower, who graduated in 1968.

  Now living in Calgary, Jennings became the youngest director at what is now known as ScotiaMcLeod. He went on to numerous successful business enterprises, including creating Jennings Capital Inc. in 1993, which has grown to 85 employees and $40 million in revenue. The company has raised more than $3 billion for Canadian companies and entrepreneurs requiring capital to expand employment and business opportunities.

  Jennings also served as chair of the Athletes Village for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, has worked with numerous charities, and sits on a number of corporate boards. Jennings and his wife are flying in from Calgary for the christening.

  Coxed fours have previously been named after former Brock Chancellor Dr. Raymond Moriyama, longtime supporter Dr. David S. Howes and longtime professor and former Director of Athletics, Dr. Lorne Adams.

  Brock will also name two pairs after Brock rowing alumni Bob Crawford and Stan Lapinski on Saturday.

  Crawford, a Silver Badger as part of Brock’s first-ever graduating class, rowed for Brock as part of the school’s first rowing crew, which was the first sport at Brock. Crawford has been volunteering in rowing behind the scenes as part of the Cat Crew, which operates the catamarans on the rowing course — installing and removing regatta equipment and maintaining the on-water facilities.

  Lapinski, also A Silver Badger and part of that inaugural rowing crew, has coached rowing at the high school level. Lapinski is well-known as the photographer at the grandstand taking countless photos of winners on the podium at the Canadian High School Championships and Henley since the 1980s. Lapinski has also edited books on rowing at Denis Morris, the 100th anniversary pictorial history of St. Catharines Rowing Club, and the 40th anniversary of Brock Athletics. He has been an active volunteer at the St. Catharines museum for 15 years.

  Brock Rowing also had two boats donated by the Wise Guys Charity which will be named after Sue Erskine and Chuck Smith.

  Erskine has committed the past four decades to rowing. Recognizing her on a shell is appropriate for her dedication and involvement with the rowing community starting as director of St. Catharines Rowing Club in the late 1970s, President of the Rowing Club, Director and President of Canadian Henley Rowing Corporation. She also has been highly involved in many community organizations, such as YMCA, YWCA, Trillium Foundation and served the city of St. Catharines as a councillor and deputy mayor.

  Chuck Smith is best known as the founder of the Wise Guys Charity Fund, which has raised more than $2 million for area projects. The fund was launched after a successful drive to raise money to help build a new YMCA community centre in north St. Catharines. It became a registered charity in 1997 and its most prominent fundraiser is a celebrity golf tournament held every year. Money raised by the Wise Guys has supported dozens of Niagara-focused charities.
   
  Brock Rowing will also unveil a display recognizing the 15 Rowers that have participated in the Olympics:

  Joel Finlay – Mexico City, 1968
  Gail Cort – Montreal, 1976; Moscow, 1980; Los Angeles, 1984
  Ron Burak – Montreal, 1976
  Kathy Lichty-Boyes – Moscow, 1980; Los Angeles, 1984
  Richard Doey – Los Angeles, 1984
  Darby Berkhout – Seoul, 1988
  Terry Paul – Seoul, 1988; Barcelona, 1992; Athens, 1996; Beijing 2008; London 2012; Rio de Janeiro, 2016
  Jennifer Walinga – Seoul, 1988; Barcelona, 1992
  Matt Swick – Sydney, 2000
  Chris Taylor – Sydney, 2000
  Iain Brambell – Sydney, 2000; Athens, 2004; Beijing, 2008
  Jacqui Cook-Beattie – Athens, 2004
  Jeff Dunbrack – London, 2012
  Eric Woelfl – Rio de Janeiro, 2016
  Tim Schrijver – Rio de Janeiro, 2016

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock horror and science fiction expert reveals Top 5 scary films of all time

  Thursday, October 27, 2016 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: R00230 – 27 October 2016

  Trick-or-treating, Jack-O’-Lanterns and scary movies. What better way to prepare yourself for Halloween than to binge watch the Top 5 horror films of all time, according to a Brock University expert on horror cinema.

  Barry Grant, Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, is internationally known for his research on horror and science fiction films and has written or edited more than two dozen books on the topic.

  “Horror movies aim to rudely move us out of our complacency in daily life by way of negative emotions such as horror, fear, suspense, terror and disgust,” says Grant, who’s Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film released in 1984 was the first scholarly anthology on horror and helped make the genre an acceptable field of academic inquiry. “Horror addresses fears that are universally taboo and respond to historically and culturally specific anxieties.”

  Grant’s research explains how these films offer a release of our own (and collective) fears by providing us with vicarious, but controlled thrills.

  Although admittedly challenging, Grant gives his Top 5 picks for horror films in chronological order:
   
  1.    Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
  “The film that established horror as a viable genre in Hollywood during the classic studio era and made Universal the most important studio making horror movies. With its gorgeous Expressionist design, Frankenstein and those that followed, whether they featured the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Wolfman or the Mummy, looked very different from the glossy kinds of movies being turned out by MGM or Paramount or the tough movies produced by Warner Bros. The film also made a star of British actor Boris Karloff, whose sensitive portrayal of the creature compensated for the drastic departures from Mary Shelley’s source novel.”

  2.    Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
  “The foundation of contemporary horror, its shocks are perfectly timed by director Alfred Hitchcock, who claimed he played the audience like a piano. Psycho brought horror home to middle America from exotic foreign places like Transylvania. Tellingly, the film begins in sunny midafternoon in a mundane hotel. The shower scene is the most famous sequence in film history along with the Odessa Steps sequence in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925).”

  3.    Night of the Living Dead (George Romero, 1968)
  “George Romero’s independent film, made in Pittsburgh, shocked audiences then and retains its power even today. Romero rewrote zombie folklore, making the undead unquenchable cannibals as well, and in the process creating a new monster mythology that resonated with contemporary audiences on several levels. One by one the film assaults the genre’s conventions and the expectations we once brought to the horror experience.”

  4.    The Devils (Ken Russsell, 1971)
  “British enfant terrible Ken Russell was known for his flamboyant excesses and violations of British propriety. Some might well describe all his films as horrifying, although he only made two actual horror films: the campy Lair of the White Worm (1988), based on a Bram Stoker novel, and The Devils (1971), based on The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley. In recounting the events that transpired during the Inquisition in 17th century Loudon, the devils of the film’s title are hardly supernatural and all too real. The hysteria, collusion and corruption detailed in the film are much more frightening than any levitating beds or rotating heads.”

  5.    Dead Alive (A.K.A. Brain Dead) (Peter Jackson, 1992)
  “There is a distinct tradition of comedy in horror, which in its more recent graphic phase has been dubbed ‘splatstick,’ a combination of the two forms. It culminates in Peter Jackson’s gorefest of sight gags, which no less an authority than Sam Raimi, director of the cult classic The Evil Dead (1981), described as ‘the intolerance of splatstick.’”
   
  To learn more about the horror genre, read Grant’s essay on Screams on Screens: Paradigms on Horror. Grant is also doing a live YouTube interview at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 31 on the topic of De-Coding Horror.
   
  For more information on Grant’s research areas and publications, visit the Brock University website.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases