Charles Sturt University (CSU) is lending its expertise to a recruitment campaign with a difference. Instead of targeting prospective students, this campaign is targeting pet dogs. In partnership with the Sydney Animal Behavioural Service and the company HomeoPet, CSU is recruiting 150 dogs from across Australia to participate in research into the treatment of anxious animals. The study will examine the effect on dogs of the homeopathic remedy known as Anxiety. “We would like to hear from anyone who has a pet dog which reacts to thunderstorms,” said Dr Jacqui Ley from the Sydney Animal Behavioural Service. “The anxiety may be demonstrated in behaviour ranging from destructive activities to simply barking at a storm.” “Through its veterinary science program, CSU will be supporting the research by analysis of the data,” said Head of the CSU School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, Professor Kym Abbott.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) allied health students will meet with employers in the health sector in Albury on Thursday 16 October to consider their futures. Potential employers have been invited by CSU to promote positions and careers to the final year students before they finish their degrees. This year’s annual CSU Job Market, now in its sixth year, will have an international flavour as a group of health employer representatives from Singapore will also attend the market. The expo will include prospective employers for speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists. “There is always a buzz in the room at this expo. As they face the end of their courses, the students are considering their options and this expo brings many of these options under one roof,” said Dr Megan Smith, physiotherapy course coordinator at CSU. Research shows that between 2002 and 2007, up to 60 per cent of graduates from CSU started their careers in regional, rural and remote Australia.

Some of the most mysterious and interesting creatures in the Murray River floodplain - tadpoles and frogs - will be the subject of a field night with Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Dr Skye Wassens near Albury as part of national Water Week. A researcher at CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, Dr Wassens will present a 30-minute talk about the frogs of the region, how to identify them and how to create frog-friendly habitats. This will be followed by a spotlight and listening tour around the Wonga Wetland lagoons near Albury and a demonstration of how to identify different frogs by their calls. Dr Wassens is currently leading a research project funded by the Murray Wetlands Working Group, looking at the relationship between different flood management regimes and the breeding responses of frogs in wetlands along the Murray, from the Hume Dam to the South Australian border. She is an expert on the Murray River’s most endangered frog species, the Southern Bell Frog.

A new academic at Charles Sturt University (CSU), Mrs Kelly Spuur, is passionate about mammography and is close to completing a PhD which aims to improve the quality of clinical breast images. A mammographer is a radiographer trained in breast imaging. Mrs Spuur believes her field is gaining popularity as an occupation, with mammographers in high demand around the world. After 16 years at Riverina Medical Imaging and BreastScreen in Wagga Wagga, she moved to CSU earlier this year. Mrs Spuur convenes a biennial mammographers conference in Wagga Wagga which this year attracted 130 specialists from across Australia. Her PhD examines the quality and evaluation of breast images in a clinical setting with the goal of developing a computer program to enhance the digital images. “This program will improve image quality and the ability of mammographers to screen using established quantitative imaging criteria,” she said. Mrs Spuur also teaches undergraduate students at the School of Dentistry and Health Sciences in subjects about radiological equipment and x-ray production.

Promoting a positive transition for children into school is the goal of teachers from New Zealand (NZ) who will visit Charles Sturt University (CSU) and the Border region next week. CSU’s Murray School of Education will host the visit by preschool and early school teachers from Taumarunui to schools around Albury-Wodonga. Supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Education, the visit is part of a larger project that involves five primary schools, one secondary school and three early childhood centres. The project seeks to improve the experiences and achievements of Maori students. The changes already achieved by the project members will be shared with Australian teachers at a Transition Forum involving Wodonga schools on Wednesday 22 October. On Thursday 23 October, the NZ teachers will visit schools and early childhood settings in Wodonga and Albury to hear about transition programs and practices. The visit is coordinated by Professor Sue Dockett, who is also collaborating with NZ’s University of Waikato on the project.

School students from the Border region will have a science excursion with a twist next week when the ‘Science in the Bush’ event, hosted by Charles Sturt University (CSU), comes to Albury-Wodonga. Dean of the Faculty of Science at CSU, Professor Nick Klomp, said the two-day expo provides primary and secondary school students with an opportunity to engage with science, engineering, technology and innovation first-hand. The event, to be held on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 October in the Albury Convention and Performing Arts Centre, will be officially opened by Assistant Director of the Australian Museum, Ms Janet Carding, followed by an address by Professor Klomp, who is also a regular science commentator on ABC radio around Australia.  Science in the Bush is part of the Science in the City Project run by the Australian Museum with Executive Partner, the University of Sydney. The program is supported by the Australian Government through the Science Connections Programme of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

As the start of the Charles Sturt University (CSU) dental and oral health courses approach in February 2009, the University has added the international experience of Professor David Wilson to its teaching staff. Professor Wilson is a professor in dentistry and health science (oral and maxillofacial pathology). He has joined CSU at Orange from the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Professor Wilson has also worked in Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and has about 30 years undergraduate and postgraduate teaching experience in oral pathology. He maintains ongoing clinical practice and research into specialist diagnostic oral histopathology. His research interests include oral cancer, oral diseases and forensic odontology.  The new courses offered through the CSU School of Dentistry and Health Sciences  in 2009 include the Bachelor of Dental Science and a Bachelor of Oral Health in Dental Therapy/Dental Hygiene.

The annual conference held by final-year speech pathology students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) will be a celebration and a farewell. The School of Community Health is celebrating the speech pathology course’s tenth anniversary while also saying farewell to Associate Professor Lindy Mcallister, its founding academic. Professor Mcallister joined CSU in 1997 to set up the speech pathology course, which has educated professionals particularly for practice in inland Australia. Professor Mcallister is taking up the position of deputy dean of medicine and health sciences at the University of Queensland. Guest speakers at the conference include Professor David Battersby, who was Dean of CSU’s Faculty of Health Studies and Head of the University’s Albury-Wodonga and Dubbo Campuses before becoming Vice-Chancellor of University of Ballarat, and Ms Claire Salter, a practicing speech pathologist from Katherine in the Northern Territory. This year’s conference, to run from Wednesday 22 to Friday 24 October, will address speech and language problems in older and younger people.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Goulburn has taken a huge stride in developing its infrastructure at the NSW Police Academy by laying five kilometres of fibre optic cable to connect the campus to the main Sydney-Melbourne fibre optic trunk. The cable, which cost $600 000 to install, now provides a network connection of one Gigabyte per second, which is more than 100 times greater capacity than the technology it replaced. As CSU owns the cable, it will be able to increase the capacity in the future at a reasonable cost.