Reminiscences will flow like beer after a Rugby game at the inaugural Charles Sturt University (CSU) Rugby Fundraiser on Friday 1 September. Well known author and sports journalist Peter FitzSimons is the guest speaker at the fundraiser, which will be held at the Northern Suburbs Rugby Club in Sydney, where CSU alumnus and Rugby Old Boy John Tully is CEO. Also attending is Ross Reynolds, another Old Boy, ex-Wallaby and current forwards coach of the Brumbies. Michelle Fawkes, CSU Alumni Officer says funds raised will go towards registration and insurance costs for the five CSU Rugby teams (including a women’s team) entered in the Central West Division 1 Competition, as well as providing for an accommodation placement and a scholarship.

To mark Adult Learners’ Week in September, Charles Sturt University (CSU) is recruiting for CSU Connect, a free bridging program that fast-tracks distance education students into undergraduate degree courses. Danielle Ranshaw, the StudyLink Program Coordinator at CSU Bathurst says CSU Connect came out of research into rural participation and attrition rates at university. “The idea is to get more people from the regions into the University and also adequately prepare students for study. CSU Connect takes people from a basic level to a fairly advanced level quite quickly.” Lisa Marr is one of the potential students who enrolled in the first CSU Connect program last year. “I saw a poster on a noticeboard in Mudgee. I wanted to go to university, but it has been a while since I left school. I know that if I had a degree, I might get the job I want and fulfil my life a bit more. I feel like I can meet the standard of university study now, that I can complete it and do very well at it.”

"I thought it would be useful to have some industry qualifications,” says Tristam Horn, an Accelerated Teacher Training Program student, of his decision to gain certification in Microsoft® Office. Coming first in Australia in his Excel examination saw the Charles Sturt University (CSU) student win a trip to Orlando, Florida in the USA, where he was then crowned World Champion for Microsoft® Excel. “I learnt a lot that I didn’t know Excel could do. It gave me a better understanding of what it is capable of as far as recording students marks, scaling, grading and graphing, both for my benefit and also for the students to see where they are in the class and in the year. It is an easy way to see how students are going in different areas of their study, and I can see where I need to improve my teaching and hopefully deliver a bit better the next time."

The changing global communications environment and the increasing role of the consumer were the hot topics when the CEO of the International Advertising Association (IAA) World Secretariat spoke to Charles Sturt University (CSU) advertising students last week. Michael Lee, also the immediate past IAA President, was invited to the Bathurst Campus by Rod McCulloch, CSU’s Advertising course coordinator. “Mr Lee is very familiar with CSU because we have won the IAA’s student advertising competition InterAd three times in six years, the only university in the world to have done so. He is very supportive of what we do here”. Mr McCulloch says the IAA is the industry’s peak body. “It has a presence in over 70 countries and has over 4 000 members. The IAA supports the role of advertising in the community and the fostering of professional development and education.”

Being described as a “Walkley winning journalist of the future” must be a heady feeling for any communication student. Matthew Brann, a Charles Sturt University theatre media student in Bathurst has just taken out the radio section of the 2006 JUST Super Student Journalist of the Year Award, announced by JUST Super and the Walkley Foundation. Matthew says his radio item, A Darling Place grew out of his major work last year. “I travelled the Darling River doing stories about the river and its impact on the local communities, where the drought is really affecting small towns. I focused on my own style, which uses a lot of music and actuality.” The judges obviously liked what they heard, saying A Darling Place was a “lovely, whimsical yarn. It provides a wonderful slice of country life that is not often heard in mainstream Australian media”.

Jenny Dickinson, a graduate of Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) double degree in psychology and teaching in Bathurst, is one of five young Indigenous people featured in a booklet urging Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to “join our mob” and become teachers in the New South Wales public school system. The booklet was produced by teach.NSW Public Education, and Jenny was nominated by her principal at Moree East Public School. “I was the first Aboriginal student to accomplish the double degree at CSU,“ Ms Dickinson said. “I became a teacher because it allows me to indulge my passion for Indigenous education. I think it is very important to encourage Indigenous people into teaching. Discrimination is still alive and well in my opinion.”

Australia’s Young Endeavour national youth sail training program “builds positive social capital” according to a study released by the Federal Government. Charles Sturt University students Sarah Poulos and Tom Fisher agree. “I sailed a few years ago and met a whole group of absolutely fantastic people,” says Sarah, currently in her fourth year of a special education teaching degree on Dubbo Campus and the recipient of a two-year scholarship from the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. Tom sailed in July and says “it was awesome. It exceeded my expectations tenfold. You build personal confidence which gives you the ability to do anything you want.” Tom is an agribusiness student from Wagga Wagga Campus who went on a student exchange to Kentucky, USA last year for six months, and is off to Japan soon on a Mitsui travel scholarship.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism graduate, Courtney Trenwith has won the Minister’s Award for Excellence at the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) Excellence in Education Journalism Awards. Ms Trenwith received $3 000, as well as high praise for her work. Chair of the ACDE, CSU’s Associate Professor Jo-anne Reid, said Ms Trenwith’s submission was “absolutely outstanding. I was especially impressed that Courtney looked at the human side of education, not just the big issues”. Ms Trenwith says she arrived at the Awards ceremony in Canberra expecting to receive the News category, and was stunned to receive the overall excellence award. She says she loves her work at the Illawarra Mercury newspaper, saying “education was the only round I ever wanted to do”.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) is expanding the number of student Accommodation Residences as a major initiative in response to demand from prospective students and their families. CSU’s acting Executive Director of Student Services, Andrew Callander said the University is planning to substantially increase the number of beds available for students and to increase the variety and type of accommodation available. Initially CSU will add around 170 beds by 2009 on all its major campuses: Albury-Wodonga Campus: 48 new beds to come onto the Thurgoona site; Bathurst Campus: Four eight-bed cottages to open by February 2007; Dubbo Campus: Fully commissioning of new student accommodation totalling 62 places; Orange Campus: Converted cottages for 20 students on the CSU Orange Campus; Wagga Wagga Campus: Two eight-bed cottages to come on stream by February each year from 2007 to 2009. A 20-bed complex using funds from a bequest to the University will be built in 2007. “We are also planning for a large scale project to add 600 new beds to meet increasing demand for on-campus accommodation on our Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst and Wagga Wagga campuses,” Mr Callander said. The project will expand the range of accommodation offered and take the total beds available for students on campus at CSU to around 3 000.