A Charles Sturt University (CSU) education expert believes greater investment in quality early childhood education and care would reduce the need to invest in gaols. Dean of CSU’s Faculty of Education, Professor Toni Downes has welcomed both Coalition and Labor policies which she says are trying to make early childhood education and care more affordable for Australian families. Professor Downes welcomes Labor’s pledge to create an entitlement for all four year olds to have at least 15 hours of early childhood education and care. Professor Downes says “While these initiatives are wonderful, they don’t go far enough. I would argue it should be the entitlement of all three and four year olds in Australia to have at least 15 hours of quality early education. In pushing for this additional investment in early childhood education, I contend that there are significant long term economic and social returns for the country. I firmly believe the more we invest in early childhood education the less we would need to invest in prisons,” Professor Downes said.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) will honour a woman from inland NSW whose influence is felt across Australia and North America. Dr Jill Ker Conway will be conferred with a Doctor of Arts (honoris causa) in recognition of her achievements in educational leadership in Northern America, for her contribution to Australian society and business, and as a champion of social justice and women’s rights in a ceremony to be held in Wagga Wagga this evening, Tuesday 20 November. Dr Conway has served on the boards of numerous companies, including Nike, Colgate Palmolive and Merrill Lynch, and as Chair of Lend Lease Corporation. She was born in 1934 in the small township of Hillston and spent the early part of her childhood on the family property “Coorain”, located on the far western plains of NSW. The honorary doctorate will be awarded to Dr Conway at the Convention Centre on CSU’s Wagga Wagga Campus, starting at 6.30pm.

The National Council on Intellectual Disability (NCID) has given Charles Sturt University (CSU) the ‘thumbs up’ for its management of the NCID’s Wings Away library collection on intellectual disability. This relationship is set to continue with a new agreement to be signed at the Albury-Wodonga Campus Library in Albury on Thursday 22 November at 1.30pm.  The agreement covers the ongoing hosting of the NCID Wings Away collection by CSU, continued free interlibrary loans for NCID and an annual donation of $1 500 to further develop the collection. The Wings Away collection, named after the group of former Australian flight attendants who set up the collection, was transferred from NCID to CSU in mid 1997.  The collection consisted of over 3 000 books and journals on intellectual disability and benefits students in CSU’s habilitation and other allied health courses. Representative from CSU, NCID and Wings Away will attend the signing ceremony.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will have the chance to “test drive” university life later this month when the annual Koori Admissions Program (KAP) is held at Charles Sturt University (CSU). The program will be run at the Dubbo Campus from Monday 26 until Thursday 29 November and offers potential Aboriginal students the opportunity to experience university life while being assessed on their skills. Participants can also meet with staff at the University’s Indigenous Support Units, which offer academic and personal support to Indigenous students. The Units are located at the Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Dubbo, Goulburn and Wagga Wagga campuses. “This program, which is an alternate entry to CSU, gives potential Aboriginal students the chance to see if university life is for them in a supportive and caring environment,” said Mr Ray Eldridge, Manager of the Indigenous Support Units at CSU. Current Indigenous students will also discuss how CSU has met their needs and aspirations with CSU’s KAP staff.

Colourful elements of Indigenous Australian cultures will be presented to school students from the Border region when they visit a free education day hosted by Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) early childhood education students on Monday 26 November. The University students, directed by CSU academic and Wiradjuri elder Yalmambirra, will lead small groups that explore various aspects of Indigenous cultures including games, bush tucker, face painting, dance and storytelling, and be assessed as part of their teaching degree course. “The day long event is an important educational experience for CSU students and 500 primary school pupils that will visit during the day,” said Yalmambirra. The event will be held from 9am at the Mirrambeena community centre, Martha Mews, Lavington.

A newly appointed Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer with the School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences in Wagga Wagga has received accolades from a prestigious international veterinary publication. Mr Jan Lievaart, now based at the CSU Wagga Wagga Campus, has won the annual award for the best scientific article published in the Journal of the Royal Dutch Veterinary Association, the equivalent of the Australian Veterinary Association. The paper, Transvaginal aspiration as the primary treatment of follicular cysts in dairy cattle, was published in 2006 and is a result of research collaboration between veterinarians in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Director of Veterinary Science, Professor Kym Abbott says the award reflects the high standard of research Mr Lievaart will undertake while at CSU. Mr Lievaart is a lecturer in veterinary epidemiology and his research interests are lameness and mastitis in dairy cattle and herd health programs related to general food safety.  

The medical fraternity of inland NSW has a rare opportunity to hear from a world leader in cardiac research when the Medical Director of the Cardiac Health Institute in Sydney, Professor Hosen Kiat visits the Riverina this week. Professor Kiat will be at the Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Wagga Wagga Campus on Friday 9 November to present a seminar to CSU staff entitled Preventing Heart Attacks without Prescription. The Professor of Cardiology will also attend a Nuclear Medicine scientific conference at the CSU Wagga Wagga Campus on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 November. Professor Kiat, who is also a specialist in nuclear medicine, has over 200 scientific publications and several books including The Eastwest Medical Makeover, which provides a blueprint for longevity and a robust life style, based on his long term passion in the eastern philosophy and his profound knowledge in western medicine. Professor Kiat believes “it’s not about life expectancy, but a greater expectancy for life”. 

Explorations of body language in children with autism, surviving car accidents with traumatic brain injuries and working in rural schools and in Vietnam are among the topics in a Charles Sturt University (CSU) conference on the latest in speech pathology, to be held on Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 November in Albury. The two day conference, titled Searching for Treasure, the hunt for evidence and experience in rural Australia, is hosted by 35 final year speech pathology students from CSU who will present workshops on various topics relating to current practices in speech pathology. Guests include Dr Shani Dettman, who will present an overview of research on speech and language development in young children with Cochlear implants, and the group “Wild Choir”, young performers who show that having a disability is no limit to your singing ability. Searching for Treasure will be held in the Nowik lecture theatres on CSU’s Albury city site, Guinea St, Albury, starting at 3pm on 7 November.

Doctoral and masters students and early-career researchers from universities, government agencies and private institutes involved in environmental and resource economic research are expected to attend a two day forum next week at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Associate Professor Mark Morrison, from CSU’s School of Marketing and Management, said that the Early-Career Researcher Workshop, known as E-CReW, aims to provide a forum for early-career researchers to get feedback on their research in a supportive and non-threatening environment. “Researchers can interact with and get advice from more experienced academics, as well as meet with other researchers at a similar stage of their careers. It also provides a forum for employers to meet new graduates or those who are soon to graduate, and for research agencies to discuss current research needs,” he said. E-CReW 2007 is hosted by the University’s Institute for Land Water and Society (ILWS) at the University’s Bathurst Campus on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 November. Approximately 70 participants from six countries are expected to attend.