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ALBURY-WODONGA
Home > Regional News > Albury-Wodonga
Bluebottles rev up for big sting
07 Aug 2007
A group of Charles Sturt University (CSU) students are out to "put the sting" into their more fancied rivals when they compete in the water polo competition in the upcoming Australian University Games, to be held on the Queensland Gold Coast from 23 to 28 September. The CSU Bluebottles, comprising nine CSU students from its Albury-Wodonga and two from Bathurst campuses, boasts seven regular top grade players who have represented the Ovens & Murray Association, NSW and Australian Country Teams. In July, the Bluebottles walked away with a bronze medal at the Australian universities’ East Coast Challenge and are confident of an even better performance on the Gold Coast. Team captain Matt Hogan, who played for the last three years in England and before that had stints with the Cronulla Sharks and Canberra Dolphins in the Australian National League, said, "We are going to the Gold Coast confident in our ability to be competitive. After our top three finish in Sydney we can go to the Australian University Games believing we are a medal chance.” The Bluebottles are looking for support from the Border community to get to the Games. Anyone interested can send an email to csubluebottles@hotmail.com
Media Note: For interviews, contact CSU Media. Print this story Wentworth group rewards CSU student
25 Jul 2007
 Competing against some of the top young environmental scientists in Australia, Charles Sturt University (CSU) honours student John Rawsthorne has won a scholarship from the eminent Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists in recognition of his project on the importance of birds in spreading mistletoes in the Australian landscape. His supervisor Dr David Watson from the CSU School of Environmental Sciences asserts that the mistletoe is an important indicator of the health of Australian bush, and John’s research project will help discover how this occurs. In addition to receiving financial support from the Purves Environmental Trust to attend the 2007 Ecological Society of Australia conference in Perth in November, Mr Rawsthorne will also receive advice from leading Australian ecologists Professor Hugh Possingham and Dr Denis Saunders during the project, as well as attend a master class with senior scientists and fellow students in Sydney in October. John’s award is one of 19 presented to research students in universities around Australia. He is based in Forbes in central NSW.
Media Note: For interviews with John Rawsthorne and Dr David Watson, contact CSU Media. Print this story The guns of Kiska Island
24 Jul 2007
A Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher is off on a trip offering “excitement of a life-time”. The trip to a remote Alaskan island is to gather an inventory of guns left behind by Japanese military forces after World War II. Archaeologist and principal researcher with CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society (ILWS), Associate Professor Dirk Spennemann has been contracted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to inspect and document the guns on Kiska Island in the Bering Strait and to assess their state of conservation. He is one of a party of five who will spend five days on the island. Professor Spenneman says “This research fits into my interest in modern heritage and the planning problems. We can’t plan for the island’s volcano erupting but at least if we can document what we have now, then we can plan for future management and how we might stop these guns rusting away or being stolen.”
Media Note: For interviews contact CSU Media
Print this story International aid for CSU diabetes research
24 Jul 2007
 Medical researchers at Charles Sturt University are receiving overseas assistance to develop an early-warning system for detecting diabetes and heart disease in regional Australians. “Over 1 900 Australians are diagnosed each week with diabetes. We are looking to find the risk factors to help calculate the chance of a patient developing this debilitating disease, using common medical tests and computer software,” said research group leader, Dr Herbert Jelinek. For the past five years, around 800 participants from Albury-Wodonga and surrounding areas have provided heart rhythm readings, inner eye photographs, blood samples and feet tests, which are being analysed to find trends that will help detect the disease in its early stages. All this data is now part of comprehensive database developed over three months for the CSU research group by Emilien Pecoul, a postgraduate student from the University of Poitiers in France. “We are looking to prevent diabetes rather than deal with it after it happens. This software will enable us to search more efficiently and effectively for simple tests and factors that could signal early signs and help patients and medical professionals deal with it before it develops further,” Dr Jelinek said.
Media Note: Dr Herbert Jelinek and French student Emilien Pecoul are available for interviews and pictures at 10.30am, Thursday 26 July at Adams building, CSU Albury city site, Wilson St, Albury.
Print this story An international view on wine research
20 Jul 2007
 The new Director of Charles Sturt University's National Wine and Grape Industry Centre, Professor Thomas Henick-Kling will draw on his commercial and research experience to talk about the latest wine research developments worldwide at a evening dinner in Albury on Monday 23 July. A native of Germany, Professor Henick Kling is a wine microbiologist with commercial and experimental winemaking experience and knowledge of wines from Germany, France, USA, Australia and New Zealand. He has returned to Australia after 20 years with the prestigious Cornell University in USA. He has judged international wine competitions in USA and Europe and is on editorial boards for two international wine research journals. Participants will hear from Professor Henick-Kling before enjoying a two course meal in the Border Wine Room, Dean St, Albury.
Media Note: Professor Henick-Kling is available for interviews at 11am, Monday 23 July at CSU's Thurgoona site, off Old Sydney Road, Thurgoona. Print this story CSU builds on Chinese relations
17 Jul 2007
 Eight Charles Sturt University (CSU) International School of Business staff leave for China later this month to conduct intensive professional enhancement programs with their counterparts at four Chinese universities. Tianjin University of Commerce, Yunnan University of Economics and Finance, Changchun Taxation College and Yangzhou University are strategic partners with CSU for the delivery of business studies courses to international students overseas. Professor Alan Fish is Head of the International School of Business at CSU. He explains that the articulation agreements with the four Chinese institutions means students can graduate with both Chinese and western qualifications, making the students more employable. “We will be conducting intensive face-to-face sessions with the Chinese academics to familiarise them with assessment procedures and content of the CSU subjects,” Professor Fish said.
Media Note: CSU staff leave for China Thursday 26 July. Professor Alan Fish is available for interviews, contact CSU Media. The International School of Business staff travelling to China are Professor Alan Fish, Professor Terry Heazlewood, Associate Professor John Messing, Dr Ramudu Bhanugopan, Dr Robert Herriot, Tony Bush, Anthony Jarratt and Robert Scully. Print this story The many loves of Doris Bornemann
17 Jul 2007
 Doris Bornemann has a big heart. She says two of her loves include photography and also Charles Sturt University (CSU). As a former Student Liaison Officer she often opened her heart - and her home – to CSU students. “I would invite the lonely ones home for a baked dinner and a few home comforts. And the external students used to have regular parties at my house. They would look forward to it every residential school. I was made a Life Member of the Student Union. It was a great honour.” Doris worked at CSU for 20 years. She is also the only non-Academic on the Honour Board. Her contribution to CSU did not stop with her retirement 15 years ago. She now volunteers with the Emeritus Club, which funds “three or four” scholarships every year for CSU students. Doris’s other love, photography, is currently on display at the Bathurst Women’s Health Centre. One hundred and twelve photos reflect her wide ranging interests which take in both man-made and natural landscapes, animals and human portraiture.
Media Note: The Bathurst Women’s Health Centre Photographic Exhibition: Photographs by Doris Bornemann, opened at 2pm on Friday 13 July and runs until the end of the month Print this story CSU helping to overcome local government skills shortage
17 Jul 2007
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is working with the combined Central NSW Councils (CENTROC) to offset skill shortages affecting local government. CSU has offered flexible education programs and additional support to local government staff in target areas such as management, information technology, business, finance, human resources, tourism and marketing. Pat Bradbery, Manager of the Professional Development Unit in the School of Management and Marketing at CSU Bathurst, says a residential school at CSU Dubbo, planned for February 2008, will help the prospective students to “kick-start their study and networking. It will provide access to advanced technology, lecturers and other learning skills support staff”. Mr Bradbery says that CSU already runs a “highly successful postgraduate week-long residential program in Bathurst for local government finance professionals, and the Bachelor of Management provided through the Orange Campus is very well suited to the local government sector. We are in an excellent position to help CENTROC overcome its skills shortage.”
Media Note: Pat Bradbery is available for interviews, contact CSU Media.
Print this story CSU’s champion Hockey team
17 Jul 2007
Earlier this month, Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Women’s Hockey team picked up a gold medal at the inaugural East Coast Challenge University Games. CSU’s Men’s Hockey won silver despite being a man down for most of the competition, while the Men’s Water Polo team came away with bronze. Nik Granger, a student support officer, said this was the first time CSU had competed as one university with a team of 70 students representing Albury, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst and Dubbo campuses. “Overall, seeing as we had such a small team, the atmosphere was fantastic,” he said. CSU also had first year distance education Master of Applied Science (Library and Information Management) student Lisa Matuzelis competing in the Australian University Championships for Surfing at the Gold Coast. She came away with silver and bronze and a typically laconic surfer attitude: “I would have liked to have come first, but I’m pretty happy with the result. I can’t complain,” she said.
Media Note: CSU also had fielded Ultimate Frisbee and touch teams at the East Coast Challenge University Games. Nik Granger and Lisa Matuzelis are available for interviews, contact CSU Media Print this story A journal for a brave new world
10 Jul 2007
 Will nano-technology save the world or spell the end of civilisation? Professor John Weckert of Charles Sturt University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics says as well as those two groups of people with diametrically opposed view of this new technology, there is also a third viewpoint: “These voices are trying to get the arguments into perspective so that the technology can be used in ways that are most beneficial.” Professor Weckert is the editor-in-chief of a new journal, NanoEthics. “It was thought that now is a good time to set up an academic journal that can be a forum for serious discussion of these issues,” said Professor Weckert. He says the journal is aimed at academics, philosophers, ethicists, policy makers and “people involved in regulation, many of whom are lawyers. It is very much a cross-disciplinary journal.”
Media Note: Professor John Weckert is available for interviews. NanoEthics on line can be seen here. For more on the John Weckert’s views on the controversial field of nano-technology, especially human enhancement, see here. Print this story |
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