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CANBERRA
Home > Regional News > Canberra
CSU horses around in holidays
07 Jul 2009
 The success of the inaugural equine school held during the Easter school holiday break at Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Orange has prompted organiser Ms Cheryl Gander to continue the program. The next school will be held from Tuesday 21 to Friday 24 July. “All the participants enjoyed themselves immensely and came away feeling they had learned valuable horsemanship skills as well as new handling techniques and a better understanding of the general welfare and nutrition of their equine friends,” said Ms Gander from the School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences. The four-day school, run by highly regarded and qualified instructors, caters for all age groups and experience levels. The Equine Centre at CSU at Orange even has a selection of quiet horses that are available for hire during the school. The closing date for enrolment applications for the July school is Monday 13 July. For enquiries please phone Ms Gander on 02 63657 850 or mobile 0417 665 324.
Media Note: For interviews contact CSU Media. Read more about the equine school here. Print this story Finding the solution not the problem
30 Jun 2009
 The shift in counselling technique from focussing on a client’s problem and where the problem originated from, to concentrating on solutions to the issue has been highlighted in a new book by Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic and counsellor, Ms Stephanie Johnson. Solution focused counselling... Keeping it Real, discusses the philosophy of solution focused counselling, now used in most government and non-government agencies, particularly in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The eBook provides step-by-step examples of the techniques and principles of solution focused. “This is a book for therapists, social workers, psychologists and allied health professionals in the brief family therapy,” said Ms Johnson. “This is a book for those who are interested in using solution focus in their work and want to know more. Solution focused counselling fitted my counselling approach perfectly. It maintains that the client is the expert in their own life and that the problem is the problem; the client is not the problem. This book is the accumulation of 14 years of counselling practice - I felt that there was a gap in the market for information for beginning practitioners around solution focused counselling.”
Media Note: The eBook Solution focused counselling....Keeping it Real was published in 2009 by www.solutionfocusedcounselling.com. The book is available here. Ms Stephanie Johnson is a social worker lecturer at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU at Wagga Wagga and a practising counsellor. Her areas of research include adolescent trauma, mental health and counselling. Ms Johnson is available for interview about her new book and solution focused counselling.
Print this story 2MCE's Sounds Live Australia-wide
30 Jun 2009
.jpg) When the week-long live-to-air music festival Sounds Live returns to Bathurst community radio station 2MCE from Saturday 1 to Friday 7 August, the performances will be recorded for distribution to community radio stations around Australia. Ms Michelle O’Connor, Programming and Production Coordinator at 2MCE, said the station recently received a grant from the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (AMRAP) to produce a compilation CD of local musicians from the Sounds Live concerts for distribution nationally via AMRAP and the Community Radio Network (CRN). “The AMRAP funding comes from the Federal Government and is managed through the Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF). We are very pleased to be part of this project and look forward to sharing the great musical talent from the Bathurst region with the rest of Australia,” said Ms O’Connor. In 2009 Sounds Live will feature two live concerts for the Bathurst community.
Media Note: Contact CSU Media to arrange interviews. 2MCE operates from studios at CSU at Bathurst and has a long history of providing innovative programmes. In 2009, 2MCE will join with Local Stages to host the launch event, the Sounds Live Cabaret on Saturday 1 August at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (BMEC). The cabaret will bring old-time style, glamour and audience participation to the radio and will feature performances from EQD, Fat Wombat, Aaron Hopper, and Eight Dollar Orchestra. On Sunday 2 August, 2MCE will host Sounds Live Acoustic from the Ponton Theatre at CSU at Bathurst for an afternoon of laid-back acoustic music. The rest of the Sounds Live week will feature live-to-air performances from 2MCE’s broadcasting studios.
Print this story Student focuses on dairy industry
30 Jun 2009
 Half-way through her veterinary science studies at Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Wagga Wagga, Ms Simone Lee is putting her scholarship funds to good use. Ms Lee from Mathoura, between Deniliquin and Echuca, won the 2009 Greenham Dairy Scholarship worth $10 000. The funds are being used by the CSU student to meet the costs of the practical experience in her course such as accommodation and travel, including four weeks work in the field in 2009. She has undertaken placements at her home town of Mathoura in NSW as well as in Corryong and Tatura in Victoria. “I spent one year on a dairy farm before starting my degree at CSU in 2007 and it is there that I developed a strong interest in working with dairy cattle,” said Ms Lee. “This generous scholarship has made a big difference to my life of study and work at CSU.” The annual scholarship, offered by H W Greenham and Sons in Tongala, Victoria, aims to promote education within the dairy industry and to encourage people to undertake further studies and make a commitment to the industry.
Media Note: CSU student Ms Simone Lee is studying her degree through the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at CSU at Wagga Wagga. She is on a semester break from Friday 26 June until Monday 27 July.
Print this story Climate change in textile
30 Jun 2009
A decade-long relationship in cyberspace between fourteen Australian and New Zealand female visual artists has led to a new exhibition of stitched textiles focussing on the issue of climate change. The email group includes Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer, Dr Sue Wood from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Wagga Wagga. Organised by email, the exhibition, A Change in the Weather, is currently travelling in New Zealand. It is curated by New Zealand textile artist Ms Clare Smith who found one of her inspirations in her husband, Dr David Wratt, a climate change scientist for Niwa. The works – all 50 by 150 centimetres, highlight the potential causes and consequences of climate change. “My piece, ‘The Forgotten Factor’ is inspired by where I live; fertile farming land shrinks under the onslaught of drought and fire,” said Dr Wood. “We debate the causes and we debate about what to do, but we don't talk any more about the impact of an exponentially increasing world population.”
Media Note: Dr Sue Wood is an Art History and Visual Culture Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU at Wagga Wagga. She has exhibited her textiles in Australia and overseas and wrote her PhD thesis on the work of NSW embroiderers in the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition A Change in the Weather will open in the Cloakroom Gallery, Queenstown Art Gallery in Queenstown, NZ, on Friday 3 July. It was shown in the Minerva Textile Gallery in Wellington, NZ in June.
Print this story Staff honoured for excellence
30 Jun 2009
 The extensive research work of Charles Sturt University (CSU) ecologist, Associate Professor Gary Luck in the area of biodiversity conservation has been publicly acknowledged in the 2009 Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence. The Vice-Chancellor and President of CSU Professor Ian Goulter announced on Monday 22 June the recipients of this year’s awards to academic and general staff. The Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence has gone to Associate Professor Luck from the School of Environmental Sciences at CSU at Albury-Wodonga and a member of the University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society. His internationally recognised work focuses on two key areas in ecosystem services and conservation near human settlements. Ms Kristy Robson from the School of Community Health at CSU at Albury-Wodonga has been named winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Professional Excellence for her work the University’s Allied Health Clinic where podiatry and other students obtain clinical experience. There are two recipients of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in lecturer Ms Amanda Davies from the School of Policing Studies at CSU at Goulburn and lecturer Dr Jennifer Sappey from the School of Social Sciences and Liberal Studies at CSU at Bathurst. Awards for excellence in leadership, performance and programs that enhance learning have also been announced. Professor Goulter will present the awards during ceremonies at Bathurst on Tuesday 30 June and at Wagga Wagga on Wednesday 1 July.
Media Note: A presentation ceremony will be held in the James Hardie Dining Room, CSU at Bathurst from 2pm to 5pm on Tuesday 30 June. A presentation ceremony will be held from 2pm to 5pm at the Convention Centre at CSU at Wagga Wagga on Wednesday 1 July. Read the latest work of researcher and recipient of the 2009 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence, Associate Professor Gary Luck here.
Print this story Record lottery jackpot gives scientist pause for thought
26 Jun 2009
 To say the odds are long when it comes to the chance of winning the largest lottery draw in Australian history on Tuesday 30 June is an understatement. Professor Nick Klomp, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Charles Sturt University (CSU), puts the chance of winning the jackpot in the $90 million Oz Lotto draw next week at one in 45 million. “If you want an even chance to win the first division just once in your life, you would have to buy a 10-game ticket every single week of your life, even when a baby,” said Professor Klomp. However the CSU academic adds “oh, and you’d have to live to be over 87 000 years old”. “You are much, much more likely to die from being struck by lightning than pick the seven winning numbers by playing a single game next week.” Professor Klomp usually advises people to keep their money in their pocket. He sees lottery tickets as voluntary taxes for people who are lousy at mathematics, but the size of this jackpot makes it worth thinking about.“In any normal week, the best way to be a winner is to put the money you were going to spend on lottery tickets into a savings plan,” said Professor Klomp. “However a $90 million lottery is not normal. As soon as the first division prize goes over $50 million, the potential payback becomes worth the investment. It doesn’t increase your chances of winning; it just makes it mathematically more sensible to buy a ticket.” Professor Klomp is keen to point out that all of this assumes that if you win the jackpot, you aren’t sharing it. “You need the potential payback to be at least 45 million times every dollar you spend. So long as you don’t think it’s an investment and you get your money back in fun, then go ahead and enjoy yourself,” advises Professor Klomp.
Media Note: Professor Nick Klomp is the Dean of the Faculty of Science at CSU at Albury-Wodonga. He doesn’t usually buy lottery tickets, but may just break his own rule this week. He is available for interviews. Contact CSU Media. Print this story Social inclusion for low paid workers
23 Jun 2009
 The idea that employment automatically leads to personal well-being and social inclusion is being questioned by a Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher. In an address to the 2009 Social Inclusion Forum in Melbourne on Thursday 25 June, Dr Helen Masterman-Smith will question what, if anything, the Federal Government’s Social Inclusion Agenda (SIA) has done to address the kinds of barriers that low paid workers encounter. “Labour market participation is a cornerstone of the whole-of-government approach that the Commonwealth is developing to improve social inclusion. However, its SIA recognises that low pay and poor job quality often derail this key objective.” A sociology lecturer and co-author of the book Living Low Paid, Dr Masterman-Smith says the difficulties of ‘making work pay’ at the bottom end of the labour market is a social inclusion challenge that has yet to receive the policy or public attention it warrants. She will also comment on whether the Australian labour market and economy can actually deliver a ‘just transition’ to a low-carbon economy, through the Emissions Trading Scheme, or whether such a transition will simply reproduce current labour market inequalities.
Media Note: Dr Helen Masterman-Smith is a sociology lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU at Wagga Wagga. She will speak at Melbourne University’s 2009 Social Inclusion Forum, to be held on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 June. Dr Masterman-Smith will present a seminar titled Labour force participation: when employment doesn’t lead to inclusion. Is the SIA likely to improve the current situation or simply perpetuate it? Her book, co-authored with Ms Barbara Pocock, Living Low Paid: The dark side of prosperous Australia was published by Allen & Unwin in 2008.
Print this story Hell, horror and hope in the Congo
16 Jun 2009
 A confronting portrayal of daily life for women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be brought home during a public lecture in Albury on Wednesday 17 June by Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Dr Elaine Dietsch. For the past five years, Dr Dietsch, a senior lecturer in CSU’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, has worked with traditional midwives and women in the DRC. Her public lecture, Hell, Horror and Hope in the Democratic Republic of Congo, relates to her last visit to the country in May and June 2008. Despite the official end of civil war in the equatorial African country, women and girls in the country's south-east continue to experience sexual assault and torture. The address, part of the CSU 2009 Public Lecture series, will be held in Nowik Auditorium, CSU Albury City site, Guinea St, Albury.
Media Note: Dr Elaine Dietsch is a senior lecturer with the School of Nursing and Midwifery at CSU at Wagga Wagga. Read more about Dr Dietsch’s work in the DRC here. Photos of Dr Dietsch are available from CSU Media.
Print this story Walk in our shoes
09 Jun 2009
People with communication problems resulting from neurological impairment who have been employed to tutor small groups of speech pathology students will be thanked at a ceremony at Charles Sturt University (CSU) on Wednesday 10 June. Employed by the University’s speech pathology program to tutor the third year students for 18 hours over six weeks, the client-tutor program helps the students catch a glimpse of their clients’ worlds. The tutors teach the CSU students about what it is like to live each day with communication problems resulting from such conditions as stroke or traumatic brain injury. The tutors also discussed the experiences of their family members; their experiences of therapy and of the health service in general; and their experiences of community attitudes towards their disability. The ceremony will include short presentations by the five student groups about their experiences with their tutors. This event will be held at 3pm on 10 June, in the Sloshed Cod, CSU Albury City site, off Olive St, Albury.
Media Note: For interviews with client-tutors and students in the speech pathology program, contact CSU Media. The students are studying a Bachelor of Health Science (Speech Pathology) through the School of Community Health at CSU at Albury-Wodonga.
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