The 2012 Police Expo at Darling Harbour in Sydney on Sunday 1 April will give prospective recruits the opportunity to learn about the range of policing courses offered by Charles Sturt University (CSU). Ms Amanda Davies, lecturer and course director for the Associate Degree in Policing Practice at the CSU School of Policing Studies in Goulburn, said, “Charles Sturt University is proud to participate at the 2012 Police Expo, which is part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the establishment of the NSW Police Force. The University offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate policing courses. The Associate Degree in Policing Practice is a starting point for new recruits, and other courses enable officers to advance their careers and specialist interests, including law enforcement research and management, through the CSU Australian Graduate School of Policing at Manly.”

Starting in Bathurst on Thursday 29 March, the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Division of Learning and Teaching Services will hold forums on a number of its campuses for academics to discuss developments in online and mobile learning and teaching at the University. Forums facilitator, Associate Professor Philip Uys, the Director of Strategic Learning and Teaching Innovation in the CSU Division of Learning and Teaching Services, said, “The continued evolution of quality in learning and teaching at Charles Sturt University, and the growing expectations of our students for appropriate technology responses, requires the University’s staff to skilfully use an ever-growing set of internal and external educational technologies. Charles Sturt University is increasing its digital, mobile and paperless learning and teaching, which pose challenges for strategists of these new technologies, and for academics using them. It will be good to share information about education technology developments at the University and have some in-depth conversations about why these changes are occurring. We will explore what the learning and teaching potential of the respective educational technologies is, and what issues we are facing.”

An agreement between Charles Sturt University (CSU) and the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) to provide study options for business studies students will be marked in a ceremony in Wagga Wagga this week. A new Memorandum of Understanding will be signed by CSU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Ross Chambers, and CIT Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adrian Marron, on Wednesday 21 March to continue the cooperation between the two education providers. CIT is a TAFE partner of CSU for the Pathway Program into business studies. CIT students complete an Advanced Diploma, and then complete CSU subjects (delivered on CIT’s Reid campus in Canberra) in their final year of study. After three years of study, students graduate with an Advanced Diploma from CIT and a degree in business studies from CSU. Professor Chambers said, “This new agreement will strengthen pathways for students between the Canberra Institute of Technology and Charles Sturt University, as well as the development of further academic cooperation.” Read more here.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) has been named as the first Australian host of an international lecture at the National Library in Canberra to promote the importance of information in the high technology age. Professor of Information Studies at CSU, Lisa Given, said, “This is the first time that the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) has awarded this lecture series to an institution outside North America.” Canadian academic, Emeritus Professor Gloria Leckie, from the University of Western Ontario, will deliver the ASIS&T lecture from 5pm on Wednesday 21 March. Her free public lecture at the National Library of Australia, From Facebook to Twitter and Into the Cloud: Where is Library and Information Science in our Googleized World?, will explore the meaning of libraries and information centres in today’s technological world. Read more on CSU News here.

Ms Maria Williams, the daughter of the late Wiradjuri Elder, Wongamar, also known as Pastor Cec Grant, will honour her father’s legacy at a public lecture in Canberra on Friday 23 March. The 2012 Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture  focuses on the interactions between Australian Indigenous cultures and Christianity, and the history of Indigenous Christian movements. In 2008, Charles Sturt University (CSU) established the annual Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture to recognise and celebrate the work of Pastor Grant, OAM. Ms Williams will present her lecture from 7pm at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (ACC&C) in Canberra. The annual Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture is supported by CSU, the Wiradjuri Council of Elders, and the Wiradjuri Christian Development Ministries.

Resources collated in a national education project, to be launched in Canberra on Wednesday 26 October, will provide a major boost for early childhood education students says Professor Sue Dockett, project team leader from Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Murray School of Education. “Funding for the Early Childhood Education Workforce Project was available for only a limited time, so it has been really important that the outcomes of this project are sustainable. Although funding for the collaboration will finish, the resources will have a life of their own. They will have an influence far beyond the life of the project and will be freely available across the country. Regional and remote communities, in particular, will benefit in lots of ways. The studying teachers are working in communities where there aren’t many educators and they should feel valued and important. This project recognises the value quality educators give to a community. They can upgrade their qualifications and stay within their chosen community It’s a chance to look at career options without necessarily having to change location, so quality education is accessible and the profession is gaining and retaining the best qualified educators.”

A mosaic wall mural thought to be the largest in Australia will be dedicated at a ceremony at Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra on Thursday 4 August. The Executive Director of centre, Reverend Professor James Haire, AM, said, “The ‘Mural wall of the Holy Spirit in our land’ is a ceramic mosaic derived from a painting by Mr Hector Jandany, a Christian and an elder, lawman and custodian of the Gija people of the East Kimberley region in Western Australia. The original painting is in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the mural, approved by Hector during his lifetime, was executed by Mosaics by Morrisey. In the painting and the mural, the Holy Spirit is depicted in the form of the white owl of the Gija people, whose lands extend from Warmun to Texas Downs in the East Kimberley. The Holy Spirit watches over us all.” The Governor-General of Australia, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, AC, and Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, AC, CBE, DSG, will dedicate the mural at 3pm, Thursday 4 August at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 15 Blackall St, Barton, Canberra, ACT.

During International Year of Chemistry 2011, the role chemistry plays in telling us about changes in the world around us is the focus of a seminar at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga on Monday 18 July. The seminar, entitled Chemistry in the real world – from nanotechnology to freshwater ecology, will showcase research in chemistry in the University’s School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences. Senior lecturer Dr Paul Prenzler said the study of chemistry helps us to have a better understanding of what is happening in the real world. “Underlying our health as humans and the health of the environment around us are chemical processes that can take place at very small or ‘nano’ levels or large scales, such as water quality in rivers,” he said. The seminar will discuss antioxidants and human health, river and soil health, along with wine colour and quality.

TAFE students who have enrolled in or recently completed Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses at the Canberra Institute of Technology, TAFE NSW Riverina Institute and TAFE Western can now win scholarships to further their education at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at CSU, Professor Ross Chambers, says applications for the 12 scholarships, each worth $2 500, are available for 2010, with four scholarships available at each institution. “The CSU University Pathway Scholarship Program is part of the University’s ongoing commitment to create strong education pathways and collaboration from TAFE to University in our regional cities and regions,” says Professor Chambers. Dr Colin Adrian, Chief Executive of the Canberra Institute of Technology, said it is extremely important that people with financial constraints are given the opportunity to further their education. “People top up their education to advance their careers and keep abreast of technical and social changes,” Dr Adrian said. “We no longer live in a world where one basic qualification will last our entire working life.” Scholarship applications will close on Friday 27 November, with offers due to be made to successful TAFE students on Friday 11 December.