Over 100 Bathurst business and community identities have indicated they will attend the first Charles Sturt University (CSU) Business and Community reception to be held on Monday 5 June at 5pm. The function will highlight the integral role CSU has in the community, particularly with the business and education sectors. The reception will build closer links between the Bathurst community and the University and promote an understanding of CSU’s regional and community strategies. The Bathurst reception is the first in a series to be held across all CSU campuses in the coming months.

Charles Sturt University graduate David Ford has won the Great Australian Story Challenge with his short film, A Little Bit of Magic. David graduated this year with a Bachelor of Arts (Television Production), and will now spend three months working with Australian Story at ABC TV. “I have a lot of respect for both the program and the ABC. I feel I have the capacity to make good stories, but it is also knowing how to work within a particular production environment. I don’t know where it will take me or what it will hold but it is looking optimistic.” A Little Bit of Magic tells the story of Cliff Armitage, who had an amazing career change since being involved in the gun control policy formation after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. David says making the film was a challenge “because I was doing the lighting, sound and camera, as well as producing and directing and researching”. Last year David filmed a travelogue documentary about his time spent at an African AIDS orphanage, which airs in July on cable TV in Australia, and later in New Zealand and Indonesia.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Dr Keith Nesbitt’s research on a design pattern for complex systems has won him a 12-month postdoctoral appointment to the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) in Boston, USA. Dr Nesbitt, a lecturer in Information Technology at CSU, has been working in the relatively new field of science known as complex systems. The study of complex systems is about understanding indirect effects and the problems we find difficult to solve. They have causes and effects that are not obviously related. Examples of complex systems include beehives, ant colonies and even the stockmarket, as well as the human brain. NECSI, where Dr Nesbitt will be based, is an independent non-profit educational and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex systems. NECSI was established as a collaboration of faculty from Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Brandeis and other academic institutions. “I’m keen to take my research to the next level. That would be the ultimate goal: to try and understand what they call the theory of the mind”, said Dr Nesbitt.

Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) premier ukulele group, CSUkes, are tuning up for the annual Blue Mountains Ukulele Festival on Saturday 4 February in Katoomba. CSUkes spokesperson Dr Kristina Gottschall says the Blue Mountains town will be taken over by ukuleles and ukulele players of all shapes and sizes when they descend, or ascend, from all corners of the globe to play non-stop across two stages for over 12 hours. “As ‘veterans’ of the festival, now in its third year, the CSUkes will play a range of pop, folk, and rock-out tunes,” Dr Gottschall said. “This includes Five Foot Two on quirky banjolele with a very loud voice, a punk version of My Guy, and even a Monty Python classic. The festival will also feature workshops, busking, and an ‘open microphone’ section for ukulele players of all skill levels.” CSUkes will perform at 5.30pm Saturday 4 February at St Hilda’s Church Hall, 68 Katoomba Street, Katoomba. The other festival venue is the Carrington Hotel Ballroom.

Several new facilities at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst have been completed or are nearing completion, and others refurbished, for the arrival of students and the start of the new academic year at the end of February. Mr Col Sharp, Head of Campus at CSU in Bathurst, said, “In late 2011, work was completed on the relocation and extensive refurbishment of the Learning Commons at the Truskett Library. The $3.5 million project, which includes new computers and study areas, was funded by the University and the federal government’s Better Universities Renewal Funding. The Diggings student residences, built in 1974, have had a total refurbishment - paint, carpets, furniture, and safety features – for approximately $1.2 million, funded by the University. This is part of a broader $2 million upgrade of student residences, including the on campus John Oxley Village, and the off-campus Mitchell, Truskett and Gordon Houses in Brilliant Street, Bathurst. The new hi-tech Regional Inter-Professional Clinical Simulation Centre costing $2.8 million will become operational this month for use by nursing and paramedic staff and students. It was funded by CSU and the government’s Capital Development Pool Program. There are four new tennis courts and two multipurpose/basketball courts as part of the ongoing ‘Health and Wellness’ and sports facilities and amenities upgrade funded by a federal government Voluntary Student Union grant of $2.6 million with a $500 000 contribution by CSU. This includes new access ramps, pathways, and picnic shade structure and barbeque areas.”

Charles Sturt University (CSU) researchers representing the areas of emergency management, community psychology, and economics, will host a meeting in Molong on Wednesday 8 February to discuss community preparedness for flooding, and their expectations relating to warnings, response, and recovery. Mr Ian Manock, lecturer in emergency management at the CSU Australian Graduate School of Policing said the meeting follows a postal survey distributed to residents in early January which sought responses to questions about community preparedness and expectations related to flooding in the Molong area. “This is part of a broader research project being conducted by the University which aims to analyse how a number of rural communities in both Australia and Bangladesh prepare for and react to flooding,” Mr Manock said. “Although different in terms of culture, economy, and size, the communities share similarities in that they are all exposed to flooding on a regular basis, and are all located outside major urban areas. We aim to use the experiences of the communities to identify strategies that can improve community preparedness, enable government agencies to better understand community expectations, and hopefully reduce the impact of future flooding on these rural and semi-isolated communities.” The community meeting is at 7pm Wednesday 8 February in the Molong Community Hall.

Academics in health disciplines will hold a day-long trial in the new $2.8 million regional inter-professional clinical simulation centre at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst on Friday 24 February. Coordinator of the trial, Dr Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen, a lecturer in the Bachelor of Clinical Practice in the School of Biomedical Sciences, said, “This first event in the new clinical simulation centre will be an exciting pilot run for a major research project, with another exercise scheduled for April. We will run five scenarios on a tight schedule using ‘actors’ (staff) from the School of Biomedical Science. Medical professionals are generally taught in their own discipline groups and have little contact with each other until they get into clinical settings. In the simulation centre, we will have inter-disciplinary groups – nurses, doctors, registrars, paramedics and other health professionals – working together in the research project.” The $153 000 research project is funded by Australian General Practice Education (GPET), in collaboration with Beyond Medical Education (BME) which is responsible for the further training of general practitioners in this region.

The Mitchell Student Guild of Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst will again host the annual Kids Day Out charity fundraiser on Saturday 3 March. The director of this year’s Kids Day Out, Ms Alyce Woods, said, “This year’s event promises to be a jam-packed day with appearances from everyone’s favourites, Dora the Explorer and her cousin Diego, and Toy Story characters Buzz and Woody, as well as our favourite fairy, Tinkerbell. This year we’ll also have some great rides for both the little kids and the big kids at heart. All proceeds will go to the Bathurst Base Hospital Paediatric Ward, and the local Riding for the Disabled organisation.” The event will also feature carnival rides, kids craft making stalls, an animal petting zoo, jumping castles, barbeque and food stalls, candy and show bags, a community stage with various local musicians and performers, raffles, roving performers, face painting, an ambulance on display, and a special look at our emergency services.

A Japanese academic will visit Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst this week to discuss plans for a filmmaking project linking local high school students with Bathurst sister-city, Okhuma, in Japan. Associate Professor Jane Mills, a lecturer and researcher at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, will host the visit by Associate Professor Hirotoshi Yaginuma, a fine arts teacher from the Faculty of Education at Niigata University. They will collaborate on the project, and will discuss it with CSU staff in Bathurst and Wagga Wagga, via video-conference, on Wednesday 29 February. “Professor Yaginuma and I are planning a screen literacy research project involving teachers and students from Bathurst High School and from Bathurst’s sister city of Okhuma, who have been relocated to another city, away from the nearby tsunami-caused nuclear disaster zone at Fukushima last year,” Professor Mills said. “This project relates to research about the role of popular screen culture in student engagement levels, the capabilities of the camera on a smart phone for screen literacy learning, and the potential of the mobile phone camera for cultural participation and global citizenship.”