Women in the church and the role of regional press are the subjects of the first two history doctoral theses at Charles Sturt University.

Former Wagga Wagga journalist Nancy Blacklow wrote her thesis on Community Voices: The role and influence of the Riverina Local Press, 1910-1960 - a detailed survey of six representative newspapers in the region during that half-century, providing a microcosm of social and political values.

Elizabeth West researched Mary Potter: Woman, Mystic and Founder (1847-1913) - a thesis about the founder of the order of Catholic nuns, the Little Company of Mary, of which Sister Elizabeth is a member.

Both women were admitted as Doctors of Philosophy when the first history PhDs for CSU were conferred at the Faculty of Arts graduation ceremony this morning, Thursday 11 May.

After working for more years in the local media than she cares to admit, Nancy said the local press often laid claim to being their community's voice, and maintaining a strong leadership role through major periods of change. However her research into the secessionist movement in the Riverina of the 1920s and 30s (as the subject of her honours thesis), raised questions on whether the press was leading or following critical change such as the Riverina Movement of 1931.

"Current studies of the media have given little attention to the role of the local press in rural communities," Nancy said.

"Yet the newspapers which proliferated in country towns and cities for more than half of the 20th Century served as the voice of their communities."

Her detailed survey covered six newspapers of the time and region: the Coolamon-Ganmain Farmers Review, Tumut and Adelong Times, Riverine Grazier, Temora Independent, Area News and Wagga Wagga's Daily Advertiser.

Findings of her study included that: "An evaluation of the extent and form of press influence on a range of key issues in the history of the Riverina shows that influence was exerted through information, education and, to a lesser extent, editorial comment.

"Much of this influence was driven by an emphasis on the local benefits for and achievements of the individual newspapers' immediate localities… However the Riverina newspapers were not purely altruistic, and there were tensions between their efforts to serve the interests of their communities and their commercial ventures.

Nevertheless, Nancy's research found that, for the period studied, the Riverina Press; "maintained a strong and vocal commitment to its communities".

Sr Elizabeth's study of the life of Mary Potter, founder of the religious order of the Little Company of Mary (which runs Wagga's Calvary Hospital), explores the role and impact of religious experience on the foundation of a given religious community.

Her research found that tracing Potter's development as woman, mystic and as founder, underscores the close - even causal relationship - between religious experience and social action and between the founder of a given religious institute and its essential charisma.

"In the process, it reveals the tensions, conflicts and difficulties women of religious virtuosity faced as they sought to be agents of social change within Victorian society and the Roman Catholic Church of the 19th Century," Sr Elizabeth said.

Both researchers, who had returned to tertiary studies as mature age students in recent years, said just before their graduation presentation that they were excited and nervous approaching the milestone they had worked so long and hard for.