Canadian academics to descend on Brock

Posted By Tiffany Mayer, Standard Staff

Posted 2 months ago

The intellectual Olympics are coming to Brock University.

Brock announced Friday that it won a bid to host the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in spring 2014 — an annual meeting of thousands of academic minds from across Canada.

"It's quite exciting," said Liette Vasseur, Brock's vice-president of research. "It means a lot of work but it's good for the region."

The event, which is expected to attract between 6,000 and 9,000 scholars, has the potential to generate as much as $10 million in economic spin-offs, including 17,000 to 20,000 room nights in local hotels and university residences.

It's Canada's largest multidisciplinary academic gathering to discuss research and ideas.

That makes it a boon for Brock, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2014 and is trying to solidify its status as a research-intensive university.

"By 2014, Brock will have continued to increase its research intensity ... so it will be a great time to profile our accomplishments to the rest of Canada and throughout the region," Vasseur said.

Brock previously hosted the conference in 1996.

The nod from the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences to host the congress kick starts years of work readying Brock for the scholars' arrival.

Co-ordinating transportation, booking blocks of hotel rooms and reserving tables at local restaurants are all jobs that need doing, Vasseur said.

Then there are the volunteers who need to be recruited to register and direct visitors, the classrooms the university needs to get ready and the audio-visual equipment that must be up to snuff.

"When you do a little meeting of 20 people, it's one thing but when it's 8,000, 9,000 people, it's something else," Vasseur said.

Brock beat out the University of Windsor, University of Ottawa and University of Western Ontario in London for the host job.

Federation spokesman Ryan Saxby Hill said Brock offered the right combination of a great facility, an interesting travel destination for delegates and a team that was ready to host an event of this size and scope.

Then there was the community support that impressed the federation, he said.

"Brock included everyone from local transportation providers to local mayors in the bid process," Saxby Hill wrote. "The Federation was genuinely impressed at how the community and region came together to support Brock in the process."

So was Vasseur.

"I felt very proud," she said about Brock and Niagara's wooing efforts. "We have a wonderful region and when we all get together, we can move mountains and it really showed."

tmayer@stcatharinesstandard.ca