Media releases

  • Brock conference to explore concepts of youth and childhood

    MEDIA RELEASE: 11 October 2017 – R00183

    A conference at Brock University this week will bring together child and youth studies experts from across North America.

    Conceptualizing Childhood and Youth is a three-day conference starting Thursday, Oct. 12 that will allow researchers, graduate students and community members to learn from each other and highlight some of the work being done in the transdisciplinary field.

    The conference is expected to draw more than 100 people to Brock’s Sean O’Sullivan Lecture Hall. The event is hosted by the University’s Department of Child and Youth Studies and will include public lectures on topics such as childhood and play, life transitions for indigenous students, expressions of diverse youth in documentary film and the complex and challenging environment that today’s children stand to inherit.

    “The connections being built by this conference stretch across research with, on and about young people from a variety of perspectives,” said Shauna Pomerantz, Graduate Program Director in Child and Youth Studies and a member of the conference planning committee.

    Presenters from several departments at Brock will join colleagues from universities across Canada, the U.S. and Europe at the conference funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

    In addition to the public talks, the conference features research paper sessions, networking opportunities and graduate student workshops on a wide array of topics.

    “We have a large group of graduate students who have volunteered their time and energy at the conference, and many of them are presenting papers,” Pomerantz said. “We have a really special synergy between graduate students and faculty in our department, and the conference will help to deepen that connection and create conversations and debates that will continue long after the conference is over.”

    Conceptualizing Childhood and Youth Public Talks:

    Thursday, Oct. 12

    • 9 a.m. — Brock President Gervan Fearon, Chancellor Shirley Cheechoo and department Chair Dawn Zinga welcome participants
    • 9:30 a.m. —Dan Cook, Rutgers University, presents Play, Agency and Creativity and Other Complicities in Childhood Studies.

    Friday, Oct. 13

    • 9:30 a.m. — Suzanne Stewart, OISE/University of Toronto, presents Breaking the Colonial Mold: Indigenous Knowledges and Youth Life Transitions.
    • 4:15 p.m. — Marnina Gonick, Mount St. Vincent University, presents Research at the Intersection of Art and Youth Ethnography.

    Saturday, Oct. 14

    • 9:30 a.m. — Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Western University, presents Learning to Inherit and Respond: New Dialogues in Early Childhood Studies

    All of these presentations will be held in the Sean O’Sullivan Lecture Hall.

    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

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

    – 30 –

    Categories: Media releases

  • Dr. Gervan Fearon to be installed as Brock University’s sixth President

    MEDIA RELEASE: 11 October 2017 – R00182

    For the sixth time in its history, Brock University will install a new President and Vice-Chancellor on Friday during its Fall Convocation ceremony.

    Dr. Gervan Fearon began his five-year term as University President on Aug. 1, but the ceremonial instalment always takes place during the first ceremony of the Spring or Fall Convocation that follows a President’s start date.

    For Fearon, who previously served as President of Brandon University in Manitoba from 2014 to 2017, the instalment will take place at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 13 in Brock’s Ian Beddis Gymnasium.

    Fearon follows in a line of Brock Presidents that includes James Gibson (1965-73), Alan Earp (1973-88), Terrence White (1988-1997), David Atkinson (1997-05) and Jack Lightstone (2007-16).

    Brock’s Fall Convocation will include two ceremonies on Friday starting at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The afternoon ceremony will see Niagara business leader Tom Rankin receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the convocation address.

    Among the distinguished teaching and student awards being handed out during the two ceremonies are the Governor General’s Silver Medalist awards — given to the two students with the highest cumulative overall average of all graduates in either the Spring or Fall ceremonies.

    Stephanie Beni (Physical Education) and Jessica She-Ting Wong (Child Health) are graduating with overall averages of 97 per cent and 96 per cent, respectively. Both will receive their awards during the afternoon ceremony.

    Media are invited to attend Brock’s convocation ceremonies Friday. Any photographers planning to position themselves in front of the stage are asked to arrange a gown with Media Relations Officer Dan Dakin in advance.

    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

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

    – 30 –

    Categories: Media releases