It’s Spring and the annual SPRUNG Festival of creative performances will be staged by third-year theatre/media students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst. A special preview was held at the University’s Truskett Learning Commons on Monday 17 September. The full season commences on Friday 21 September and runs until Sunday 30 at various venues at CSU in Bathurst. The Festival’s Mr Cameron Moor, said, “The SPRUNG Festival program is a showcase for final-year students completing the Bachelor of Communication (Theatre/Media) at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst. It presents 30 performances in 12 shows over nine nights at three venues. These creative works are for adults and young people, and cover a range of genres include film, performance, theatre and music. The festival aims to engage and entertain the University and Bathurst communities by demonstrating a range of innovative performances. There’s something for everyone, so come along.” More information on ticketing and venues can be found here.

The annual presentation of awards for sports and social groups at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst will be held at the Blues Ball at the CSU Rafters Bar on Tuesday 2 October. Student support officer Ms Jean Ryan, said, “It has been a very successful year for our sporting teams as well as many individual athletes. This year our social, cultural and faculty-based clubs will also be recognised. The guest speaker will be former Olympic swimmer Mr Michael Klim, and the Blues Ball will be attended by the Vice-Chancellor and President of CSU Professor Andrew Vann, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Professor Ken Dillon, and the Head of Campus in Bathurst, Mr Col Sharp.”

The Faculty of Business at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst is hosting a five-week visit by six scholars from its partner institutions in Kunming, Tianjin, and Changchun in China. Faculty of Business spokesperson, Professor John Hicks, said the scholars are in Australia as part of an Australian Leadership Awards Fellowship Program funded by AusAID for a research project titled ‘Achieving balanced growth in domestic and external markets in China’. “The project aims to promote joint research between Charles Sturt University and its partner institutions in China on issues related to regional business and economics,” Professor Hicks said. “The scholars arrived in early September and are spending the first four weeks in Bathurst where they are involved in joint research using input-output modelling and other related techniques to derive policy outcomes. Several joint research papers are being prepared which will add to the series of publications generated by previous AusAID Fellowships in 2010 and 2011.” The current research findings were presented at a Faculty of Business in-house seminar on Thursday 20 September in Bathurst. The Chinese scholars will visit CSU in Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga in the first week of October to make similar presentations.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) has today opened an electronic condolence book for anyone who wishes to express their thoughts to Mrs Jenny Macintosh and family, on the passing of Mr Ian Macintosh, AM, a former Mayor of Bathurst and Pro Chancellor of CSU, who died on Monday 24 September, aged 79. The University Secretary, Mr Mark Burdack, said, “The condolence book is open until Friday 19 October. Anyone from the general community or the University who wants to extend a condolence can email their comments to condolences@csu.edu.au. Charles Sturt University will then collate the condolences into a bound booklet for presentation to Mr Macintosh’s widow and her family.” A memorial service will be held by the Macintosh family from 11am on Saturday 29 September in the Student Dining Hall (Mason Building, C5) at CSU in Bathurst. Read more about Mr Macintosh on CSU News here.

Four teams from the Kajulu Communications student advertising agency at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst today delivered pitches for a youth road safety campaign to a panel representing central west road transport stakeholders. Ms Anne Llewellynn, lecturer in advertising at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, said the Kajulu advertising teams were briefed by Ms Iris Dorsett, Road Safety Officer with Bathurst Regional Council, to prepare integrated marketing communication recommendations for a road safety campaign funded by Bathurst and Blayney Regional Councils for the central west region. “The primary target market is young drivers aged 25 and under, and the communications objectives for the campaign are to engage road users to accept responsibility for their own driving and modify negative driving or other impacting behaviours, such as mobile phone use,” Ms Llewellyn said. The student teams completed comprehensive research, strategy development, and detailed campaign recommendations which they presented to the panel starting at 1pm on Tuesday 25 September at Bathurst Council Chambers. Each team’s presentation took about an hour.

Public relations students from Charles Sturt University (CSU) are collaborating with event organisers to deliver bigger and better car racing, wine and food festivals in Bathurst. Mr Donald Alexander, senior lecturer in public relations (PR) at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, said both students and the festival organisers win from these collaborations. “The Bachelor of Communication (Public Relations) students gain practical experience by working on large projects such as last weekend’s V8 Supercars Race at Mount Panorama, this week’s Bathurst Region Eats & Drinks (BRE&D) Week from 8 to 14 October and the related National Cool Climate Wine Show,” Mr Alexander said. “At least six PR students worked in the corporate office and media centre for the V8 Supercars Race to provide assistance and enhance their understanding of managing a major event and media liaison. With the new BRE&D Week and the National Cool Climate Wine Show, the students get to plan and manage an event, and develop media stories and pitch them to a range of media. They also create innovative concepts, such as this year organising for local ABC Radio to attend the wine show judging to interview associated people and cross ‘live’ to the studio.”

The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Faculty of Business will present a $1 000 prize to All Saints College, Bathurst, on Tuesday 16 October, as the central west region winners of the Game On business studies simulation competition for senior students. Associate Professor Mark Frost, Head of the Charles Sturt University (CSU) School of Management and Marketing will present the cheque to the school’s winning team, ‘BeeJay Elite Motors’, which consisted of three Year 11 students - Doug Morgan Thomas, Brad Brown, and Jack Ison. “The CSU business simulation is designed to assist HSC students undertake their business-related studies by providing a competitive and real life scenario that reflects what many of today's businesses encounter,” Professor Frost said. “Students had to make decisions on the range of issues that impacted their business performance and against other businesses in the simulation. The activities were designed to be ‘real life’ as much as possible as this enhances the student learning experience, which is a key part of the CSU business teaching strategy.”

Glenn Tasker is the CEO of Swimming Australia Ltd (SAL), the nation’s governing body for the sport and a Charles Sturt University (CSU) graduate. After his recent travels to New York, Montreal, Shanghai and Madrid, what does he think of Bathurst? He says his student days were “the best years of my life”. After graduating in 1974, Glenn taught in Sydney before being seconded into the new NSW Department of Education Sports Unit, where his career in sports management and administration took off. He says the highlights of his time so far at SAL have been the Athens Olympics in 2004 and discovering and nurturing young athletes like Ian Thorpe. Glenn Tasker is a guest speaker at Bathurst graduation ceremony on Thursday 4 May. He wants to tell the graduates that “teachers have to have high expectations of not only themselves, but also of the pupils. I want to impress upon them that they have a very, very important role to play in society, and that they need to be inspirational and dedicated to the task”.

An expert in the study of paranormal events from Charles Sturt University (CSU) believes the only scary thing about Halloween is the risk of tooth decay from all the sweets that children have an excuse to guzzle on the day. Dr Krissy Wilson, Head of CSU’s Science of Anomalistic Phenomena research unit, said the celebration of Halloween most likely started as a pagan tradition that coincided with the new harvest. “It later became a Christian celebration of All Hallows or All Saints Day. Modern times have seen it evolve into ‘Halloween’ – which came literally from ‘hallowed’ or ‘holy’ – that typically involves trick or treating, dressing up in silly outfits and watching horror movies!”