Archive
AVID meeting to benefit low income students
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
An international education program that encourages high school students from underrepresented low income groups in society to go to university will meet with Border education leaders on Monday 7 December at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Hosted by CSU’s Murray School of Education, representatives from the US-based Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program will meet with secondary school principals from NSW and Victoria, representatives from the Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, curriculum developers, school administrators and parent organisations to discuss and promote their program. Meeting coordinator Dr Sally Knipe has led visits by groups of CSU middle school teaching students to AVID professional development conferences for the past three years. These students have then become tutors in local AVID programs. “AVID is an internationally recognised program that prepares students who would not go to university for tertiary studies. The program serves nearly 400 000 students in the US and 16 countries and US territories around the world.” The day’s discussions will include how AVID has been implemented on the Border with the assistance of CSU students. The meeting will run from 9am to 3pm on 7 December at CSU’s Albury-Wodonga Campus, off Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, Thurgoona.First screening for The Letter
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
A short film by Charles Sturt University (CSU) adjunct senior lecturer in history Dr Robin McLachlan will have its first public test screening on Wednesday 2 November. The 20 minute-long film, The Letter, stars another CSU adjunct lecturer, Mr Bill Blaikey (and his co-star dog, Merry), from the School of Communication in Bathurst. Dr McLachlan said the film developed from and is part of his international research into the participation by Australians and New Zealanders in the 1897-99 Klondike gold rush in north-west Canada. “This was the first significant wave of Australians and New Zealanders to leave the southern hemisphere to seek their fortunes in the northern hemisphere. During the course of my research I found numerous letters from them to home, as well as a unique complete run of a Dawson City, Canada, newspaper, The Klondyke Miner and Yukon Advertiser, held by the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia,” Dr McLachlan said. “The script for The Letter is based closely on historical evidence from first-hand accounts published in Australian newspapers at the time, as well as information gleaned from Yukon archives and published histories.”
Giving Congo children a future through education
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
There are many charities and fundraisers vying for the public’s money to support international humanitarian and developmental efforts. A small group of Charles Sturt University (CSU) staff is contributing to a little-known group building a school in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa. The African non-government organisation (NGO) Mission in Health Care and Development (MHCD) provides assistance in communities straddling the DRC, Rwandan and Burundi borders which have suffered from years of war and unrest. The NGO is involved in health care, food production, and its education project aims to erect school buildings for the students who have never before had access to a school. CSU staff member Mr William Adlong says the group of six Learning and Teaching Services staff were among those who originally contributed the prize from an award win of $100 last year, and who’ve since started contributing individually through regular deductions from their pay. “We recently received an email from Dr Luc at the school at Korohoro. He said two mud brick buildings were completed but they would use a tarpaulin until they raised enough money to roof the building with iron. He is concerned that the buildings will deteriorate through the rainy season,” Mr Adlong said. “I think we each feel that what we contribute is a small amount for us, but a few of these contributions together actually make up a salary for a teacher. We love the idea that we’re contributing to the education of, and a better future for, children, especially those growing up where there has been such strife,” he said.Old friends reunite to discuss global agriculture
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003Having lost contact for decades, two friends will reunite 8 000 kilometres from their homeland, when a visiting Vice-Chancellor of an Indian university and now-Hindu monk meets with Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Dr Anantanarayanan Raman in Orange. A senior lecturer in ecological agriculture, Dr Raman has coordinated the visit of his dear friend Swami Atmapriyananda who is visiting from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math (near Calcutta), West Bengal, India. During his stay in Orange, Swami Atmapriyananda will give a public lecture at CSU in Orange titled Interfacing Physics with Philosophy: the Spiritual Journey of an Indian Monk. “We used to work together at a university in India,” Dr Raman said. “Since then my friend has become a monk and I have moved to Australia. We haven’t seen each other for decades, so I’m looking forward to taking him to visit ecologically sustainable enterprises in Orange.”
CSU donates historic collection to Orange City Council
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003A rare collection of framed photos, books and a highly significant 1842 plan of the Wellwood pastoral property will be donated to Orange City Council by Charles Sturt University (CSU) at a ceremony on Thursday 10 December. The Wellwood Collection was given to the Orange Agricultural College in 1969 when the Wellwood property was considered as a possible site for the College and although Rosedale Park was acquired as the site, the collection has remained with CSU and its predecessor institutions for nearly 40 years. CSU’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Ian Goulter, said the Wellwood Estate Collection was a valuable asset for local history and as such was better located with Orange City Council. The council plans to have the collection documented and made accessible online and through exhibitions.
National award for radio 2MCE
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
Radio 2MCE, the community broadcasting service operated on behalf of Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst, was recently named an award winner at the annual Community Broadcasting Association of Australia national conference at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane on 20-22 November. Ms Michelle O’Connor, the Programming and Production Coordinator at 2MCE who was present to accept the award, said staff at the station were very pleased to be recognised by their sector peers in winning the ‘Most Innovative Outside Broadcast or Special Event Broadcast’ award for 2MCE’s Sounds Live project in 2009. “Sounds Live was a live music festival, and a major live-broadcast feat for a community radio station. It featured the Sounds Live Cabaret, held in conjunction with Local Stages and Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, the Sounds Live Acoustic concert at the CSU Ponton Theatre, and more than 15 live-to-air performances from our 2MCE studio. During the week we heard jazz, classical, acoustic, cabaret, dance, folk and country music from local musicians and two live concerts broadcast on 2MCE,” Ms O’Connor said.
CSU meeting the changing needs of agriculture
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
Charles Sturt University (CSU) has risen to the task of finding new ways to promote careers in agriculture, an industry which continues to demand skilled professionals to meet the challenges posed by a changing climate and the global demand for food. The School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences at CSU in Orange and Wagga Wagga has launched the ‘Partners in Agricultural Education’, a collaboration with 30 of agriculture’s leading companies to offer final-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science students the opportunity to spend time in a workplace with skilled mentors. The initiative is in response to confronting statistics that reveal the number of people with tertiary qualifications in the agricultural sector is just seven per cent compared to the national average of 22 per cent in other sectors. Companies involved in the scheme were recently thanked at a function at CSU in Wagga Wagga. Coordinator of the new professional placement subject offered in the Bachelor of Agricultural Science, CSU lecturer Dr Alison Southwell, said, “For students thinking about taking up a degree in agricultural science this opportunity will be a real drawcard. For current students it will build real technical competency in the area of agriculture they hope to pursue, as well as developing the professional skills enabling them to become the industry’s future leaders.” Students will begin applying for placements with participating companies in 2010.
Newton's Playground champions celebrate at CSU
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
The Rafters Bar at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst throbbed with the sound of camaraderie on Sunday night 29 November when hundreds of Australian and international road-based gravity sports champions and competitors celebrated with their families and supporters at the 2009 Newton’s Playground party and presentation ceremony following three days of world-class thrills and spills on the neighbouring Mount Panorama motor racing circuit. About 200 competitors from every state in Australia and from Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Britain, the United States, France and Malaysia gathered for the second Newton’s Playground, a world championship event for skateboard, street luge, in-line skates, and gravity bikes staged at Mount Panorama under the auspices of the Australian Skateboard Racing Association (ASRA) and the International Gravity Sports Association (IGSA). One of the event organisers, Mr James Hopkin, from Hopkin Skate, said the aim was to develop Newton’s Playground year by year, and that meant choosing a date when CSU students were in town. “We love Mount Panorama and Bathurst, and want to engage the Bathurst community as we develop this great event. That also means involving Charles Sturt University students as potential competitors, spectators and support workers. For example, former CSU student Mr David Robinson, who graduated from the CSU School of Communication in Bathurst in 1988, played a leading technical role by enabling videoing and live web-casting of the event,” Mr Hopkin said. CSU Student Services Officer, Ms Alex Leis, who liaised with the organisers for their four-day post-competition use of The Rafters Bar food and beverage facilities, said it was a happy collaboration to have the gravity racers use the CSU facilities.
CSU graduate behind international top drop
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003
A Charles Sturt University (CSU) graduate has claimed an international award for the best sparkling wine in the world. Dr Marc P. Bradshaw, Wine Master at Pillitteri Estates Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, is still celebrating after his win at the Effervescents du Monde®, held by the Forum Oenologie, on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 November in Dijon, France. Dr Bradshaw’s Sparkling Icewine Cabernet 2008 was named first in the top 10 sparkling wines against competitors from France, Italy and Argentina. The annual event attracted more than 500 wines from 24 countries. Dr Bradshaw received his PhD from CSU in Wagga Wagga, Australia, in 2002 after completing his research in 2001 investigating ‘Ascorbic Acid as a Promoter of Wine Spoilage’ under Professor of Oenology, Professor Geoff Scollary. The then CSU academic convinced the PhD student to pursue a career in wine over his initial plan to work as a forensic scientist. Dr Bradshaw has worked at wineries in South Africa, Germany and Australia. He started at Pillitteri Estates Winery in Canada in 2004, and was elevated to the position of Wine Master in 2006. “I’m stoked that my Cab Sparkling Icewine was given the honour of top spot at the Effervescents du Monde. It’s pretty surreal for me as this was my first crack at producing a sparkling wine of any sort. It’s very humbling that my Canadian red Icewine should be judged so highly among top champagne and sparkling wine producers and regions,” Dr Bradshaw said.
Primary educator flying high
Wednesday, 1 Jan 2003After flying through the air and around the world, Charles Sturt University (CSU) student Mr Rick Resijan swapped the stage for the classroom for a while in order to complete a degree in primary education at CSU in Ontario. Born in Hamilton and raised in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Mr Resijan moved to Toronto to study fine arts and then joined the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School in New York, USA. “In the past 20 years I have danced in such classic ballets as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Firebird and Cinderella, as well as contemporary ballets such as Prodigal Son, a rock ballet to music by The Doors,” he said. “A special job at this time was working with the children’s theatre company New York Theatre Ballet, and I suppose this also captured my interest in teaching children. I am now back in Canada while I study at CSU, but I can’t stop dancing – I have a few projects with the Victoria Ballet Academy in Toronto and am appearing in The Nutcracker in Richmond Hill, Toronto. I would love to combine my love for dance with teaching to work in an arts-oriented school.”