The Vice-Chancellor of Charles Sturt University (CSU), Professor Ian Goulter, will confer his Teaching Excellence Award for 2006 on Ms Deborah Clarke, lecturer at the School of Human Movement, at the University’s Bathurst Campus postgraduate students’ graduation ceremony on Thursday 10 May. Ms Clarke’s ability to engage her students and develop them into critical thinkers and life-long learners was central to her success. “In everything she does, Ms Clarke focuses on making connections between university study and the world of schools,” says Professor Toni Downes, Dean of the Faculty of Education. “Her classes are highly interactive and always at the forefront of knowledge about teaching, a point consistently acknowledged by her students. Above all, she helps her students to see how dry curriculum documents can be translated into exciting and meaningful classroom experiences for children in schools. She does this by modelling creative, challenging and innovative ways of teaching children and always looking for ways to improve her own practice.”