A member of the Charles Sturt University staff in Bathurst has been named the winner of the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Performance Excellence, for General Staff 2005. Gail Wotton, Food Services Officer at Café Mitchell on CSU’s Bathurst Campus, has been honoured by Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Goulter for her dedication to her position and the University. Ms Wotton said she couldn’t believe it and offered her thanks to all staff who had supported her. “Everyone in our team is excellent and I’m honoured to be rewarded in this way; it’s the best Christmas present,” added the CSU employee. The Vice-Chancellor's Award for Performance Excellence, for General Staff recognises outstanding contributions by individuals or teams for sustained high level performance. “CSU staff continue to excel in areas such as client service, support for teaching and learning and regional engagement and this award has been established to acknowledge this dedication and commitment of general staff,” said Professor Goulter.

Through one of its leading research centres, Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) has formed an alliance with four leading international theological institutions.  CSU”s Public and Contextual Theology Strategic Research Centre or PACT has played a key role in the formation of the Global Network for Public Theology. “The group will encourage research collaboration and connections with key international civil society networks, whilst CSU will take the lead in developing student exchanges and cooperation within the network,” said Director of PACT, Reverend Professor James Haire.  The principal members of the Network include Charles Sturt University; Beyers Naude Centre for Public Theology at South Africa’s University of Stellenbosch; Centre of Theological Inquiry, Princeton University, USA; Centre for Theology and Public Issues at University of Edinburgh and Manchester Centre for Public Theology at the University of Manchester, UK. PACT is an innovative CSU strategic research centre with a focus on issues in contemporary Australian society.

Community radio station 2MCE-FM operated by Charles Sturt University is finishing the year with a national award from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA). Volunteer presenter and producer Chris Brown was named the winner of the Best Innovative Announcement, Sponsorship or Promotion category during the Association’s recent annual conference in Fremantle. “The award is a tribute to the work, persistence and talent of Chris, who has produced many quality promotions for the radio station since he started as a volunteer presenter in 1979,” said 2MCE-FM station manager Peter Tozer. Located on the University’s Bathurst Campus, 2MCE-FM is staffed by more than 120 volunteers, including broadcast students from CSU’s School of Communication where they gain practical and professional training for the radio industry.

The respect and affection which staff at Charles Sturt University (CSU) hold for retiring Dean of the Faculty of Education, Professor Bob Meyenn is apparent in their unique choice of retirement gift, a cow and calf. Retiring after 19 years of distinguished service as Dean, a farewell function will be held on Friday, 9 December from 4pm in the James Hardie Dining Room, Centre for Professional Development, CSU, Bathurst. Professor Meyenn will receive a second creative gift from the University at the farewell function. The cow and calf, a gift from Professor Meyenn’s Faculty of Education colleagues, will be delivered to his property in the NSW central west to enjoy during his retirement.

Research into wine anti-oxidants is the subject of the first collaborative doctoral program between Charles Sturt University's (CSU) National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) and the Paris-Grignon National Agronomics Institute in France. French student, Celia Barril has arrived at the NWGIC in Wagga Wagga to undertake eight months of research before returning to France. “This is the first Cotutelle program between Australia and France for wine industry research, which allows PhD students to simultaneously enrol in both a French and foreign institution,” said NWGIC Director Professor Geoff Scollary. Funded by Australia’s Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation, the PhD project will focus on the chemistry of ascorbic acid and sulphur dioxide that together are used to protect white wine from spoilage through oxidation. The Paris-Grignon National Agronomics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CSU in 2005 to promote collaborative education and research programs. 

Three talented CSU acting students will feature in an upcoming University of Montana production in the United States of the classic fairy tale, Peter Pan, the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. Students Laura Hughes, Lauren Hopley and Tom Dickins, who have been cast in major roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation of Peter Pan, are studying in the USA as part of the CSU International Exchange Program.  The trio have been busy with seven weeks of rehearsal, including fight choreograpy and flying effects. Laura Hughes was cast in the part of Wendy Darling, Lauren Hopley plays her mother Mrs. Darling, and Tom Dickins stars as Peter Pan. Lauren Hopley is completing her second and final semester on exchange. Both Laura Hughes and Tom Dickins are due back from the CSU International Exchange Program in Autumn 2006.

Coming to the end of 2005 Charles Sturt University (CSU) is celebrating its 30th anniversary as a lead educator for librarians across Australia and internationally. In a climate of rapidly changing technology and workplace demands, CSU and its predecessor institutions have led the way in the development and delivery of library and information management and teacher librarianship programs. Now the only courses of their kind offered by a regional Australian university, CSU’s success in this field has been attributed to teaching traditional librarianship principles in combination with contemporary information management techniques. "Our position as a leader in library and information management education is demonstrated by the fact more than 50 per cent of Australian librarians and teacher librarians who graduate from University do so from CSU," said Head of the CSU School of Information Studies Associate Professor Ken Dillon based in Wagga Wagga. "We teach students in a number of countries with formal programs in places as diverse as Mauritius and Hong Kong”.

Professor of Social Work at Charles Sturt University (CSU) Margaret Alston has this week been hearing submissions on Australia’s mandatory detention policy of illegal immigrants as part of a four-member panel on the People’s Inquiry into Detention at the University of NSW in Sydney. The Inquiry has completed public hearings in Port Augusta, Melbourne, Perth, Launceston and regional Victoria and is headed by Inquiry president Marcus Enfield. Professor Alston, who is also Director of the University’s Centre for Rural Social Research, is one of several Professors of Social Work from around Australia to sit on the Inquiry. Established to examine the effects of mandatory detention, the Inquiry has heard from a range of refugee advocates and detainees. “This Inquiry is an opportunity for those who would like to place on the public record their experiences of the mandatory detention policy,” said Professor Alston. “It is important that these experiences be documented and that emotions and feelings being experienced by those with first hand experience of the centres is acknowledged,” added Professor Alston.

One of the inaugural veterinary science students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga, Erin Davis, has been named this year’s recipient of the Frank Mansell Award for Agriculture by the Big Brother Movement (BBM). Receiving the award at a recent ceremony at State Parliament in Sydney, Ms Davis was honoured for her academic achievements and work in her chosen field. The CSU student, from Orange, will use the $7 000 scholarship to fund a trip to the United Kingdom next year to work with veterinarians and on sheep and cattle studs. The BBM provides annual scholarships to young Australians to fund travel to the UK. “Erin’s award is a tribute to her hard work and strong interest in animal production and her well-deserved success is a demonstration of the attributes we value so highly in our veterinary students at this University,” said Professor Kym Abbott, Director of Veterinary Science at CSU.