Galloway, N.J. – Stockton University Women's Rowing held a ceremony at the Brigantine Beach Rowing Club on May 18 to christen the program's newest shell. The boat was named Dr. Stewart Farrell in recognition of the retired faculty member who helped found the Marine Science program in the early days of the University's existence.
 
The boat is a 2023 Vespoli VHP 8+ that is rowed by the Stockton women's varsity eight, which recently earned the bronze medal in the DIII V8 Grand Final at the famous Dad Vail Regatta, the largest collegiate regatta in the nation.
 
The donation to secure the boat was made by Jack Scheurich, a student of Dr. Farrell's at Stockton in the 1970's. Scheurich is the owner of The Cove Restaurant, a local eatery in Brigantine that has supported the Stockton rowing program and the Battle of Brigantine regatta for the past two years.
 
Farrell, the University's first marine geology professor, joined the Stockton faculty during the early 1970's days in which Stockton held classes at the Mayflower Hotel in Atlantic City, and he retired in 2022 as the founder and director of the Stockton University Coastal Research Center in nearby Port Republic.
 
"The thing that was most impressive about Stockton, was that I got to start, with my faculty colleagues, two academic programs. I had to invent this stuff along with the others," Farrell recalled in a 2022 interview. Farrell's name now graces a Stockton shell in a fitting tribute to his decades of research on New Jersey's coastline.