Articles tagged with: Member Showcase

  • March Member Showcase: Dr. Brad Millington

    Our March Member Showcase is…Associate Professor with the Department of Sport Management at Brock University, Dr. Brad Millington!

    We learned more about Dr. Millington’s areas of academic interest, a new class he is teaching called “Sport and the Environment,” a research project that he worked on about the use of bicycles in “development” initiatives, and some of his personal interests/hobbies.

    Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to specialize in your specific line of work?

    My two areas of interest are sport media and technology, and sport and environmental sustainability. Ages ago I was at a video store (maybe Blockbuster … which I miss!) and a Nintendo Wii promotion caught my attention – I think the Wii was described as intuitive. I already had experience studying sport media. This seemed a new way of talking about technology that was worth thinking about in depth. It led to an interest in technologies like wearable tracking devices, exercise-themed video games, and fitness apps. My work on sport and the environment started from a project with my supervisor, Brian Wilson, when I was a grad student at UBC. We’ve worked together ever since. And, of course, it’s driven by the fact that the climate crisis presents enormous concerns.

    Can you speak about a class that you are teaching this semester/a class you taught previously/one that you will be teaching soon?

    I’m excited that I’ll soon be teaching a new grad class called Sport and the Environment. You might have seen the alarming images of orange skies over San Francisco’s baseball stadium during the wildfires on the American west coast in the summer of 2020. It was another stark reminder of how sport is often at the whim of the environment – and will continue to be in the years ahead. So, it’s worth discussing how sport impacts and is impacted by the environment, and whether and how sport can contribute to better environmental futures.

    Can you speak about any recent, current, or future research projects that you are excited about?

    I was fortunate to be part of a project with colleagues, led by Lyndsay Hayhurst from York University, on the use of bicycles in ‘development’ initiatives. The project was timely in that bicycles seem to have taken on heightened importance recently – for example, in the pursuit of sustainable transportation, in providing economic opportunities, and in promoting health and wellbeing. The pandemic has only propelled this thinking. Yet the project also identified lingering barriers for bicycle users (or would-be users), such as environmental conditions and infrastructure that isn’t conducive to cycling.

    speed round ice breakers

    What is your favourite TV show right now?

    I’m a big fan of watching cooking shows like Top Chef and The Great British Bake Off and then making my own (very) mediocre versions.

    What is your favourite movie?

    Too hard to choose. Field of Dreams is the first movie I rented (Blockbuster!). Do the Right Thing made me realize how meaningful movies can be. And A Few Good Men is the movie I’ve seen countless times.

    WHat is your favourite book?

    Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. The central idea – that the form of communication necessarily impacts the content – seems more relevant than ever in the time of social media.

    what are your current hobbies/interests?

    I’m quite enjoying tobogganing this winter, until we reach the inevitable point where I start carrying both my kids back up the hill.

    NOW IS THE TIME TO TALK YOURSELF UP! WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE PROUD OF (AWARDS, PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS, ETC.) THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?

    Most of all, I love the range of different tasks that comes with life at the University. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in exciting collaborative research projects, to teach excellent undergrad and grad students, and to work with great colleagues on important administrative initiatives.

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    Categories: Blog, Member Showcases

  • February Member Showcase: Dr. Kyle Rich

    Our February Member Showcase is Assistant Professor with the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Brock University, Dr. Kyle Rich!

    We sat down (virtually) with Dr. Rich and learned about his educational background, a new class that he is teaching, a series of research projects that he is wrapping up about rural events, and a few of his personal interests and hobbies.

    Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to specialize in your specific line of work?

    My background is in kinesiology. I studied my master’s at the University of Ottawa and I did my Ph. D. at Western. My focus was on sport and recreation policy as it relates to diverse communities, specifically rural communities. I had really good critical mentors who kind of pushed me in that direction and I got really interested in sport development. I’m from a small town so I think I always considered what that looked like in the bigger picture. And then that led me to this intersection of sport policy and rural development.

    Can you speak about a class that you are teaching/a class you taught previously/one that you will be teaching soon?

    This term, I am teaching Foundations of Leisure Studies. It is the course that everyone in the master’s program studying Recreation and Leisure takes. It’s a new course for me but it’s exciting because it’s my first grad-level course. In the class we cover classic and contemporary approaches to looking at leisure. I’m excited because it’s a small course, we get to cover some real research-focused content, and it gets in-depth about theory and research paradigms and things like that, not to mention that half of the class are students that I am supervising. So we’re a pretty tight group and it’s definitely going to be fun to work through that course with them.

    Can you speak about any recent, current, or future research projects that you’re excited about? What inspired you to want to get involved in your topic of research?

    I’m actually wrapping up a series of projects where I’m looking at rural sports events. One is called “The Battle of the Little Big Puck,” an event held in Maple Creek Saskatchewan. I just had a paper come out about it where we looked at settler-Indigenous relationships and how that is reflected in this event. It’s a super interesting event where The Ranchers play against the First Nations, so it embodies a contentious metaphor. In the last period the Ranchers wear chaps and hats and the First Nations come out in regalia and they engage in this really interesting performance of community.

    Another event is called the Heritage Cup that’s based in Barry’s Bay, Ontario. They have a really interesting settlement history along the Opeongo Colonization Road where different groups of settlers migrated. So they have different cultural groups in the area. In the tournament, the Irish, the Polish (Kashubian), the Algonquins, and the Germans make up the teams and they have a competition based on these ethnic groupings. The whole community comes out to the event dressed up and they have the four sections in the stands with all the colours from each team. It also embodies a lot of interesting symbolism and cultural practices that I don’t think people expect in small towns. So, there’s a lot of interesting elements of rural-ness and rural identity that are expressed. I’m just wrapping up those projects right now.

    Speed Round Ice Breakers:

    Are you involved in any clubs/associations?

    I play beer league hockey with a group of friends and I try to run a race every six months or so. I’m a bit of a weekend warrior with races. I’m there to do the race and have a good time and meet people.

    On the more professional side, I’m on the board for the Rural Development and Knowledge Mobilization Organization called the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation where we do lots of work with researchers and community members to try to build relationships and facilitate evidence-based decision making, knowledge translation, and all of those kinds of things.

    What is your favourite TV show right now?

    I don’t watch a ton of TV. I’m more of a binger where I’ll watch a show and then I won’t watch anything for a while. But if I were to pick my favourite show, I would have to say Vikings and a Spanish show called La casa de papel (Money Heist in English). It’s super interesting and I 100% recommend it!

    What are your current hobbies/interests?

    I jumped on the sourdough bandwagon and got a sourdough starter. I had a few successful and a few failed attempts but that was a new skill that I picked up during the pandemic. I also jumped into audio books recently. I never really read for fun because I read so much for work, so I usually don’t have much of a desire to pick up a book for a leisure read, but having the audio book option has made me much more inclined to just chill out and listen and not have to think about reading.

    What is your favourite book?

    This year I read a book called Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It was written in 2014 but it was set in Toronto after there had been a global pandemic, which is super interesting and fitting to our current situation. It’s a completely fictitious story, it wasn’t meant to be a premonition, but it was a really interesting book.

    What is your favourite sport or sports team?

    My favourite sport is hockey but I’m not really one for pro sports. I don’t follow anyone too closely but I do indulge in the Olympics when they come around.

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    Categories: Blog, Member Showcases