Charles Sturt University's (CSU) graduating photography students will hold an exhibition of their photographic works at Albury's Regional Art Gallery from this Friday 20 October. The 11 students works range across a variety of photographic styles and methods, from black and white images, to colour and digital. Photography lecturer Margaret Waller said the exhibition is the culmination of three years of intensive study for Bachelor of Arts Photography students from the Albury campus of CSU. "It is a celebration of the students accomplishments over the past three years and offers the viewer delight and intrigue." The opening of the annual exhibition will commence at 6.30pm with guest speaker Dr Kyla McFarlane from the Monash University Mueseum of Art to give the address.

This year’s National Drama Australia Conference had more drama than usual for Associate Professor Dr John Carroll, who was named the recipient of the 2006 Drama Australia Award for Excellence in Drama Education. The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Associate Professor in Communication Research also launched a new book at the Turning The Tides conference which addressed such issues as online drama, digital performance and drama learning. Professor Carroll says Real Players? coauthored with David Cameron of CSU and Michael Anderson of the University of Sydney is “aimed at drama educators, secondary teachers and the university community, as well as a broader group of people who are interested in what’s happening in new technology and performance. It covers the shift that is going on in how young people are relating to new media, and how they are creatively using alternative channels of information.”

Jane Caldwell, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) PhD candidate enrolled through the School of Clinical Sciences, has been awarded a Certificate of Merit at the 4th Annual Victorian Government State Nursing Excellence Awards. Her supervisors, Dr Elaine Dietsch and Dr Sandi Mackey, are full of praise for Jane’s work. “It is a very, very prestigious award. Jane’s PhD thesis is looking at parenting strengths in vulnerable families, so she is doing it from a positive perspective. In regard to the two thousand dollars she won, she said ‘that will buy heaps of things for the families I visit’. She is highly esteemed by colleagues as well as the families she works with,” said Dr Dietsch. Jane Caldwell describes those families as “great people. They are fabulous families. They don’t have a lot, they don’t have material things but they are rich people in what they give back.”

Trainee primary science teachers from Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Murray School of Education (MSE) are making science fun for local school children. Each year CSU students take “practical science activities” to a host school, according to John Rafferty, a lecturer with the School of Education. “Walbundrie Primary School is hosting this year as part of their Small Schools Cluster ongoing commitment to innovation and five schools are coming in by bus. There will be 11 activities in all, with children working with undergraduate teachers on interesting and practical science issues such as a volcano and solar ovens made out of pizza boxes in which they cook little biscuits. It is just a really good example of trainee teachers in the field working with schools with University support. This idea that you go away to university for four years and come out as teachers is a myth, the CSU students are involved with schools the whole time, and the local schools have a big say in their development.”

Charles Sturt University’s Occupational Therapy staff often say occupational therapists (OT) are “experts in doing”, so a day of action seems an appropriate way to promote the profession. Student members of Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) OT Club will promote the profession to the Albury-Wodonga community with a day of action that coincides with International OT Day on Friday 27 October. “Occupational therapists aim to help people perform activities that are meaningful and important to the individual and the community, which includes rehabilitation,” said OT Club representative Catherine Umina. During the lunchtime event, students will provide information on occupational therapy and what the profession offers as well as a free barbeque and giveaways between 11.30am and 2pm in QEII Square on Dean St, Albury.

When Friends of Woodstock (FOW) wanted to increase their capacity to understand the needs of their clients and address those needs more appropriately, they turned to Charles Sturt University (CSU). FOW is an Albury-based non-profit organisation which supports people with disabilities and their families, predominately young people and children, by providing early intervention and care services. Earlier this month, FOW signed an MoU with CSU’s School of Community Health. Head of the School Associate Professor Julia Coyle says the MoU will work on several levels. “As well as FOW supporting the teaching of respite care with the nursing students, we have the clinical education honours projects set up for next year, so we hope to have a team of honours students working with them then. There will also be professional development between our academics and their clinicians, and we are undertaking research projects that are of importance to them. That is something we are doing in the School quite consistently, changing our research focus to be much more community driven.”

“At a time of unprecedented global ecological degradation, I believe popular television has a responsibility to educate audiences about environmental issues,” says Bruce Fell, a lecturer with Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) School of Communication. He has spent two years interviewing Australian television executives, producers, directors, scriptwriters and performers as part of PhD thesis. Bruce will present some of his findings in Melbourne at the upcoming CSU Alumni event, Tell me about the environment. “My work looked at who are the most influential people in television when it comes to communicating with the audience. I discovered that the stars of soap opera and drama had the most influence. Fans mimic the stars purchasing habits, fashion, language, and indeed what the stars strive for in life. In a way, the TV stars are part of our new religion, they are the people we admire and worship — they lead, we follow.”

Albury’s teaching community will celebrate ten years of student research and dedication at the 2006 ECON conference, hosted by final year early childhood education students with Charles Sturt University’s Murray School of Education on Friday 3 November. The annual educational conference, for primary school teachers, early childhood educators and interested parents in the Border region, will address such questions as: Is childhood becoming extinct? Who's watching their weight? Is homework of value in primary school? and What are the challenges for beginning teachers? Guest speakers as this 10th anniversary meeting include former ABC TV Play School presenter Benita Collings and early childhood education experts Sue Dockett and Susan Groundwater-Smith. The conference, to be held between 11am and 3.30pm, will cost $12 on the day and includes a barbeque lunch and afternoon tea. It will be staged in the Cliff Blake Theatres on CSU Albury-Wodonga Campus, off Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, Thurgoona.

The dream of a person with communication impairment has lead to a community project to improve assistance for this group by Border businesses. A group of Charles Sturt University (CSU) students are helping client tutor Margaret Bashford to develop a booklet for Border businesses so they are better prepared to work with people with communication impairments. The third year speech pathology students at CSU have already surveyed some pharmacists, banks and doctors' surgeries to assess their awareness of people with communication impairments, with some organisations requesting further training and advice in this area. The students are now seeking comments from people with communication impairments to rate Albury health, education and business organisation on the service and consideration they receive. “Something as simple as an individualised business communication book, which includes product pictures and prices, can improve service and make shopping a lot easier for people with a communication disability," said CSU student Jennifer Robinson. The survey results will be used to help develop a book or training program to help fulfil Margaret’s dream and help businesses better assist people with communication impairment.