An innovative Charles Sturt University (CSU) program to educate and train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to work as mental health and drug and alcohol practitioners in their communities will be on show later this week. Nine final year students in the Bachelor of Health Science (Mental Health) will attend an Indigenous mental health conference on CSU’s Wagga Wagga Campus on Thursday 25 September. The students from across Australia will address mental health topics involving colonisation, carers, Aboriginal women, drugs and sexual assault. Known as the Djirruwang Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health program, the course aims to build workforce capacity and improve health care in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities by equipping the graduates to work in mainstream and cultural organisations and communities. The conference is being held during the students’ final residential school at CSU. Professor Elaine Duffy, Head of the CSU School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mr Ray Eldridge, the Manager of CSU Indigenous Support Unit, and Mr Wayne Rigby, the Director of the Djirruwang program, will also address the conference.

With a significant percentage of stroke victims left with speech and language impairments, Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) speech pathology course is training a new generation of therapists to ensure that the focus is always on getting people back to the activities that are important to them. Lecturer at CSU’s School of Community Health, Ms Libby Clark, believes that rehabilitation after stroke is something that should not stop at the hospital door. “It needs to reach right back to the community level to support people who have strokes to get back into the everyday activities that give their lives meaning,” she says. “The CSU program strongly emphasises the social aspects of health to students. This teaches them to think beyond what the person can’t do, and to think about what the person can do, and what everyday activities are important to the person. Our students get very practical, hands-on experience during the four year course, with a real emphasis on working in partnership with the client and their families.”

Charles Sturt University (CSU) academics have moved into their new ‘green home’ as part of the next phase of the University’s $40 million building program at Thurgoona. The building will initially house over 20 academic, research and general staff from the new School of Business and Information Technology (SBIT). It includes a ground-breaking material which helps regulate temperatures inside buildings to reduce the need for air conditioning. Developed by German-based industrial chemical company BASF, the building material is in the form of special plaster boards and flooring screed. This material includes small granules of a waxlike material that liquefies at higher temperatures, increasing its capacity to absorb heat from surrounding air. The building also includes other energy saving and environmentally friendly features such as double glazed windows, good use of daylight to reduce the need for office lighting, rainwater collection for flushing toilets, an automated building management system to control ventilation and temperature, and roof funnels for purging hot air from the building at night. The University is awaiting final notification of the ‘green star’ rating of the building with the Green Building Council of Australia.

On World Heart Day, Sunday 28 September, health researchers from Charles Sturt University (CSU) are calling for more university-based health clinics in rural areas based on research recently conducted in rural south-eastern NSW and north-eastern Victoria. The research has discovered diabetes complications, such as cardiovascular disease, contribute to morbidity and mortality even before diabetes has been diagnosed. CSU diabetes expert Dr Herbert Jelinek is part of a research team investigating how diabetes associated with atherosclerosis, a disease affecting arterial blood vessels, affects the autonomic nervous system and leads to disturbed heart rhythms. “Hypertension is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease and is estimated to cause 4.5 per cent of current global disease burden,” Dr Jelinek says. “Early identification of those with higher risk of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, can reduce casualties of severe cardiovascular disease.”

Two Charles Sturt University (CSU) business students will take their university education to China in 2009 after each won a $5 000 scholarship allowing them to study at a Chinese university for one semester. Wodonga’s Mr Brenton Olsen and Mr Cobie Butler from Albury are currently enrolled in international business management degrees with CSU’s School of Business and Information Technology, based at Thurgoona. Both have been selected for their academic records and their representative skills to attend a Chinese university in partnership with CSU. While there, the students will undertake intensive training in Business Chinese that will be credited to their CSU degree in international business management. Mr Olsen said, “The chance to learn Mandarin and to have an understanding of Chinese culture, society and business practices will be invaluable in my future career.” Previous participants in the program have returned to China after completing their degrees, including Mr Angus Coghlan from Gerogery who is currently based in Shanghai in a management position with a global logistics firm. Both students leave for China in February 2009.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) education student and future teacher Ms Rebekah Salvaire was on a holiday with a difference when she travelled recently to Korea as part of her studies with the University’s Murray School of Education. With assistance from CSU, the final year student realised her goal to visit and work in Korea, while learning more about herself. “I learnt so much about my own culture by being removed from it. It made me realise how much my culture impacts on who I am. I am now studying subjects back here in Australia that requires me to reflect on the privileges of my culture and identity. My overseas experience has shaped and grown me – it was not just a holiday." CSU education lecturer Ms Sharon Milsome led the group of eight students to South Korea for four weeks, which included a teaching practicum in an international school. “We were completely immersed in Korean culture with lectures on its history, language, economy and business, cuisine and culture.” Twelve students will gain further international experience in October when they travel to the Pacific Island country of Vanuatu to teach for one week in local primary schools.

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher who is investigating the long term sustainability of the iconic Murray crayfish in NSW and Victoria will present a talk at the Wonga Wetlands on the Murray River near Albury on Friday 3 October. Ms Sylvia Zukowski will speak about the habitat, diet, location and possible reasons for the declining population of the crayfish. The second largest fresh water crayfish in the world (after the Tasmanian crayfish), it lives in the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers and their tributaries, but is no longer found downstream from Mildura. Sylvia is completing a PhD on the ecological and social impacts of fresh water fishing regulations on Murray crayfish, through CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society and is supervised by well known aquatic scientist Associate Professor Robyn Watts and social researcher Professor Allan Curtis.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer in Teacher Education, Mr Bob Dengate, wishes regional NSW students well in the looming HSC exams, but suggests that there is much more involved than luck. “It’s all about preparation. HSC students have spent the past two years preparing for these exams in one way or another,” he said. “The students who will do best are those who have a balanced life, yet have done the extra work, using value-added resources such as study groups and online services.” The CSU Director of NSW HSC Online, Mr Dengate has been involved in the recent introduction of study tips on the CSU website link. “This is a great way for students to help students. There are plenty of useful tips already and we invite students to also add their favourite tips and to visit the Study & Exams part of NSW HSC Online”. Developed in collaboration with the NSW Department of Education and Training, the website link provides access to quality educational resources for rural and regional students.

Indigenous staff from Charles Sturt University (CSU) will consider issues regarding Indigenous education and employment in the institution at a meeting in Albury on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 October. Director of the CSU Centre of Indigenous Studies and Head of CSU at Dubbo, Mr Gary Shipp, will open the meeting with Pastor Darren Wighton, who will also welcome visitors to Wiradjuri country. On Wednesday evening during the conference dinner, the participants will hear from Chair of the National Indigenous Higher Education Council, Mr Gary Thomas, who will speak on Indigenous education in Australia and overseas. Coordinator of CSU’s Indigenous Employment Strategy, Ms Karen Kime, said CSU has already ready reached its 2007 target of two per cent of all CSU staff being Indigenous people, and it aims to reach three per cent by 2011.