A team of 140 Charles Sturt University (CSU) students in 15 teams in 13 different sports competed against 7 000 students from 40 other Australian and New Zealand universities at Australia’s largest annual sporting event, the 2009 Australian University Games held at the Gold Coast, Queensland, from 27 September to 2 October. CSU’s lawn bowls team of Mr Andrew Banasik and Mr Adam Parker (pairs) and Mr Jay Mathieson (singles) won the gold medal, while the CSU Bluebottles men’s water polo team won a silver medal, and the CSU men’s touch football team, which was down on numbers, won the bronze medal. CSU team manager, Mr Nik Granger, said it was a great week of competition where all CSU students participated in the right spirit. “This did not go unnoticed, and CSU was the unofficial runner-up for the ‘Spirit of the Games’ award. This is testament to the great nature of CSU students, who, year-in year-out, are known for their sportsmanship and good behaviour.” For each sport, a paper-based Green and Gold Merit team is chosen of people who have stood out to selectors during the week. CSU had six team members selected in their respective Green and Gold teams; Ms Chiara Porter (basketball), Mr Shane Conroy (hockey), and Mr Adam Parker (lawn bowls) and Ms Eliza Baddock, Mr Sam Thompson and Mr Brendan Collits (all in touch football).

The war against weeds in the NSW Central West continues and one Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher is determined to help win the battle. A dominant weed in the region is serrated tussock, one of Australia's most noxious weeds estimated to cost NSW farmers more than $40 million each year in lost production. Dr Aaron Simmons from the University’s School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences will be talking at regional meetings organised by the NSW/ACT Serrated Tussock Working Party about results from research conducted over the past four years by researchers at CSU and the NSW Department of Primary Industries. “The research has been used to improve current guidelines on best management practice for controlling serrated tussock in native pastures,“ Dr Simmons says. “'Serrated tussock has no boundaries - it is not just a 'farmer's' problem, it's an environmental problem that belongs to the whole community.“

The Western Division of the Australian Dental Association’s (ADA) NSW branch will meet this week at the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Orange Campus where construction of one of the $64 million dentistry and oral health facilties is being completed. Meeting in the new lecture theatre at CSU at Orange on Friday 24 July, ADA divisional members will hear talks by CSU’s Professor of Dentistry, David Wilson, on oral pathology and oral medicine. Dr John Whitworth from Newcastle University in the UK will give a presentation on endodontics, or root canal surgery. Dr Peter Duckmanton, an endodontic specialist from Sydney and current president of the Australian Endodontic Society, will also give a short presentation on endodontics. “ADA divisional members are looking forward to seeing the CSU Orange Campus developments while discussing the latest technology and practice methods in dentistry and oral health,” says Dr Sabrina Manickam, CSU Senior Lecturer and External Relations Coordinator in Dentistry and Oral Health Therapy.

The first Wiradjuri person from the Erambie community at Cowra, NSW, to be awarded a PhD will have his degree conferred at the graduation ceremony at Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Bathurst on Thursday 7 May. Dr Lawrence Bamblett, who works part-time at Erambie and lectures part-time at the CSU School of Human Movement Studies came to CSU through the University’s Koori Admissions Program in 1999. Last year he re-wrote and delivered that program which has helped many people from Indigenous communities commence studies at CSU. “My graduation is not just a personal achievement but an achievement for my family and the Erambie community because so many people have supported and assisted me,” Dr Bamblett said. “It is important to me that the community receives the recognition and credit they deserve that one of their own has graduated.” The title of Dr Bamblett’s thesis is Mission Style: Sport and Cultural Continuity on Erambie Mission.

Effective communication can help to make the world a better place, says Associate Professor Jane Mills from Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) School of Communication. Professor Mills will speak about the importance of listening to and collaborating with others when she delivers the Occasional Address to communication graduates at the Faculty of Arts graduation ceremony at 2.30pm on Friday 8 May. “Education leads to knowledge and, importantly, to better understanding about the things that matter. This opens the way for more and better communication and the possibility of better relationships between people,” Professor Mills said. “This, in turn, leads to greater involvement and participation as citizens of the community and nation, resulting in better communication and fellowship between different nations and people all over the world. Effective communication is the linchpin in all this, and I strongly believe that our students graduating with communication degrees are poised not only to become world citizens but to make the world a better place.”

Staff from Charles Sturt University (CSU) and the Central West Women’s Health Centre invite members of the public to join them for a riverside picnic to celebrate International No Diet Day at 12.30pm on Wednesday 6 May at the Peace Park in Bathurst. Event spokesperson, Ms Brona Nic Giolla Easpaig from the CSU School of Social Sciences and Liberal Studies, said International No Diet Day has grown for the past decade and is now celebrated in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Australia. “The day was originally created to protest against the pressures on young women caused by the media’s vision of the ‘ideal body’, and it links closely with protests against the ‘size zero’ phenomenon,” Ms Nic Giolla Easpaig said. “This celebration is open to all and includes a talk by health psychologist Dr Stephanie Quinton on the issue of eating disorders and body image.”

Mr Fraser Corfield, a theatre/media graduate of Charles Sturt University (CSU) has been appointed artistic director of the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) in Sydney. The appointment was welcomed by Mr Jerry Boland, course coordinator in theatre media with the CSU School of Communication at Bathurst, who said Mr Corfield was incredibly accomplished. "Fraser has been a quiet achiever since he left Bathurst in 1993; writing plays, working with youth in Queensland, and picking up multiple awards along the way,” Mr Boland said. “His appointment at the ATYP is only the latest evidence of the high regard that his peers have for his track record of leadership and innovation in youth performing arts. He has also been appointed to the Theatre Board of the Australia Council, the nation's peak arts policy and funding body, recognition that he is an insightful and accomplished practitioner who has much to offer the highest councils of arts practice and policy development in Australia."

For the second successive year, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) student has been selected as the Sydney Royal Showgirl. Twenty-one year old Ms Kimbalee Morris was named the 2009 Sydney Royal Showgirl during a ceremony on Saturday 18 April. Ms Morris, from Coonabarabran in Northern NSW, is a fourth year human movement student at CSU at Bathurst. “It was such a surprise, but I am so honoured to have been selected as an ambassador for both youth in agriculture and women in agriculture, and also for my local community. It is going to be a very busy 12 months but I am so excited by what is ahead,” said Ms Morris. As part of the title, Ms Morris receives $11 200 from the Royal Agricultural Society and The Land newspaper. She must also undertake activities as part of her role as an ambassador for rural NSW, including opening shows, public speaking events and promoting the showgirl competition. In 2008, pharmacy student at CSU at Orange Ms Anna Unger was named the Sydney Royal Showgirl.

Two officers with the Department of Lands in Bathurst will be awarded their doctorates in information technology at the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Faculty of Business graduation ceremony at Bathurst on Friday morning 8 May. The Department of Lands sponsored the research work of Dr Peter White and Dr Steven Woodhouse in an endeavour to find solutions to complex information technology challenges faced by the Department. “An interesting point is that both sets of research complement each other and provide a basis for organisations to improve the security of their digital information assets,” Dr White said. “My research thesis, Managing Enterprise Complexity: The Use of Identity Management Architecture to Control Enterprise Resources, is based on a case study of eight Australian public sector agencies that had designed identity management systems. The study allowed the essential elements of identity management systems to be identified with these elements enabling the development of a new Identity Management Architecture (IdMA).” Dr Steven Woodhouse’s thesis, titled Protecting our Critical Assets: A Management Approach to Information Security, is based on a series of studies, interviews and surveys that examined both peoples’ and organisations’ perceptions of risk. “This research identified the key issues in implementing information security and allowed the development of an Information Security Maturity Model and Information Security Quotient,” Dr Woodhouse said.