Lecturers and PhD students from Charles Sturt University (CSU) will judge the 2009 RoboCup Junior Central West competition at Dubbo Christian School on Thursday 25 June. They will also offer technical advice to school students and their teachers at the event. Associate lecturer and PhD student Mr Allen Benter, from the School of Accounting and Computer Science  at CSU at Bathurst, said RoboCup Junior is aimed at primary to secondary school children and introduces students to the international RoboCup World Championship. “RoboCup Junior focuses not only on engineering and computing skills, but also emphasises sportsmanship, teamwork, cooperation and organisational skills. The participants must construct and program a robot to compete in one of three events; Dance, Rescue or Soccer. The winners of the regional competition then advance to the state competition,” said Mr Benter, who is a PhD student with the Newcrest Mining Research Laboratory at the Universty’s Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS).

Researchers from Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Institute of Land, Water and Society (ILWS)  will meet at Wagga Wagga for two days this week to focus on setting a research agenda to tackle the big issues facing the Murray Darling Basin. Institute Director Professor Max Finlayson said, “the inaugural forum is aimed at addressing the issues which are really challenging Australians in this region, such as learning to live with climate change and ensuring we maintain healthy people, communities and landscapes.” Around 70 CSU researchers based across the University will attend the forum and talk about environmental issues including restoring and sustaining our wetlands and valuing ecosystem services. Social researchers will focus on areas such as the future for regional natural resource management, human wellbeing and healthy communities, and developing regional business enterprise.  “It is important to get our researchers into one room to sit together and focus on the big issues at hand. We are all doing individual research projects but the old adage that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ rings true,” Professor Finlayson said.

The Head of the School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences at Charles Sturt University (CSU) Associate Professor John Kent has been named as one of the founding board members of the Primary Industries Education Foundation. The focus of the new Foundation will be on school children and encouraging them to learn more about primary industries. It will deliver educational services to schools such as a web portal of educational resources on primary industries, advice on professional development for teachers and information on career paths in primary industries. The principal of NSW Department of Primary Industries’ (DPI) Tocal College, Mr Cameron Archer is the inaugural chairman. Associate Professor Kent is a member of the interim board as a representative of the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture. He has over 30 years experience in agricultural education both in Australia and overseas and is a member of the E H Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, a collaborative alliance between CSU and DPI.

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) primary teacher student is looking forward to the end of semester break in July for more than one reason. Ms Emma Wagner is one of 19 students from across Australia and New Zealand selected for a fortnight long trip to the United Kingdom (UK). The company, My Overseas Experience or myOE has awarded a scholarship to the CSU student after she expressed her desire for international experience in her winning video. The inaugural myOE university tour will take in locations including London, Brighton, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Bath and Stonehenge. Ms Wagner, from Sydney, hopes to complete her Bachelor of Education (Primary) degree in 2009 through the School of Teacher Education at CSU at Bathurst. “I am looking forward to the trip and the chance it will give me to get a taste of life overseas as I would like to eventually teach in the UK,” said Ms Wagner.

People with communication problems resulting from neurological impairment who have been employed to tutor small groups of speech pathology students will be thanked at a ceremony at Charles Sturt University (CSU) on Wednesday 10 June. Employed by the University’s speech pathology program to tutor the third year students for 18 hours over six weeks, the client-tutor program helps the students catch a glimpse of their clients’ worlds. The tutors teach the CSU students about what it is like to live each day with communication problems resulting from such conditions as stroke or traumatic brain injury. The tutors also discussed the experiences of their family members; their experiences of therapy and of the health service in general; and their experiences of community attitudes towards their disability. The ceremony will include short presentations by the five student groups about their experiences with their tutors. This event will be held at 3pm on 10 June, in the Sloshed Cod, CSU Albury City site, off Olive St, Albury.  

Charles Sturt University (CSU) will celebrate the award of six green stars and ‘world leader’ status for environmentally sustainable features to a new building on its Thurgoona site. The Academic Accommodation Stage 3 (AA3) office building has received “a six star Green Star ‘World Leader’ certified rating under Office Design v2” from the national Green Building Council of Australia. Staff from the AA3 building, which is home to the academic staff and students of CSU’s School of Business and Information Technology, will be on hand celebrate the award at a morning tea at 10am on Monday 15 June. “The principles used in buildings at Thurgoona demonstrate a comprehensive, environmentally sensitive process that spans from site planning to selection of materials,” said Executive Director of the University’s Division of Facilities Management, Mr Stephen Butt. Innovative aspects of the building that receive special mention include reduced carbon dioxide production and energy consumption by 65 per cent, and the world’s first use of phase-changing materials in the concrete floor to reduce heating and cooling used in the building.

Before sunrise, a dedicated group of Charles Sturt University (CSU) students are focussed on evaluating the quality of meat carcasses. The students enrolled in animal, equine, agricultural and veterinary sciences arrive at companies like Cargill Beef Australia and Knights Meats in Wagga Wagga and the Junee Abattoir as early as six o’clock in the morning to learn about carcass evaluation and meat quality.  The student group is led by CSU’s carcass evaluation expert and fifth year Veterinary Science student Mr Richard Sanders.  “The importance of maintaining the flow of trained young experts in the speciality field of Meat Science to service the needs of the beef, sheep and pork industries is not lost on these companies,” said CSU Professor of Animal Production Peter Wynn. “The companies willingly make their facilities available each year for the education of our students.” The students will attend a carcass evaluation workshop sponsored by Meat and Livestock Australia in Armidale in early July.  They will then have a chance to participate in an elite national training workshop and selection in an Australian team to compete in international carcass evaluation competitions.  “None of these opportunities would be possible without the support of the management of these companies,” said Professor Wynn.  

Television production students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Wagga Wagga have broken new ground in their on-going development of links with industry. The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has agreed to the establishment of a CSU student chapter of the Society. The Society's Board of Governors approved the move during a meeting in Atlanta in the United States on Thursday 4 June. The move is the inaugural student chapter in Australia. Formed in 1916, the SMPTE is regarded as the leading technical society for the motion imaging industry. "This new relationship will give CSU students access to conferences, papers, scholarships, guest lectures and of course international industry contacts," said television production course co-ordinator Mr Patrick Sproule. "I believe the approval to form the CSU student chapter shows an enormous respect for the course at Charles Sturt University as well as the Society's recognition of the importance of investment in education in the TV and film industries. A special thanks to past chairman of SMPTE Australian Section, Mr John Maizels, for recommending the formation of the student chapter and shepherding us through due process." Meanwhile, the SMPTE Australian Section has donated $6 000 so 85 Bachelor of Arts (Television Production) students at CSU at Wagga Wagga can attend the SMPTE09 conference in Sydney in July.

The attendance of a number of international and national guests at the Charles Sturt University (CSU) commemorative dinner on Tuesday 2 June to celebrate CSU’s 20th anniversary has been hailed as a demonstration of the scope and extent of the University’s relationships. Countries such as China, Indonesia, South Korea and Pakistan were well represented at the event, along with Australian dignitaries including the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, the architect of the current higher education system and former Hawke and Keating Government Minister, Mr John Dawkins and NSW Department of Primary Industries Director-General, Dr Richard Sheldrake. “It was also a pleasure to have representatives of regional local governments at the dinner and an honour to have Bathurst Regional Council Mayor Councillor Paul Toole speak on the economic impact of CSU on its campus cities,” said Head of Campus, Bathurst Mr Col Sharp “The anniversary dinner and recent events such as graduation and the Charles Sturt Foundation scholarship awards ceremony have brought many people to Bathurst, staying in our hotels, motels and guest houses, dining in our restaurants and spending in our shopping centres,” said Mr Sharp.