The Equine Centre at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga will host the inaugural Supreme Performance Horse Sale from 1.30pm on Saturday 24 November. The sale, which is the first of its kind at CSU, will see 60 Australian working stock and quarter horses go under the hammer, with more than $300 000 expected to change hands. CSU Equine Centre Manager, Mr John Smart, said the auction by Landmark is expected to attract plenty of interest. “It’s the first time that buyers in the south of NSW will have an opportunity to attend an auction in their own backyard,” he said. “Most horse auctions take place in the state’s north, so this is quite a coup for vendors and the industry as a whole.” Sixty horses will make-up the inaugural sale with vendors coming from across NSW as well as Victoria. Local horse breeder and Supreme Performance Horse Sale Committee member, Mr Steve Condell, said the sale will offer some of the best bloodlines in the country. “This is the first time we’ve had the facilities available to offer top performance quality horses,” he said.

The high standard of services offered by the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Library to its users no matter where they live has been praised in a biennial survey conducted in September. The Library Client Survey 2012 attracted 3 844 respondents, with almost 54 per cent of the surveys completed by CSU distance education students. The Library’s Director of Client Services, Ms Alice Ferguson said, “In this latest survey, the Charles Sturt University Library has moved from the bottom 25 per cent of libraries in 2010 to the top 25 per cent for overall performance of Australian university libraries surveyed over the last two years. Our staff were highly commended in the survey for the standard of service they provide to our users.” During the last two years, CSU has established new Learning Commons in Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Orange and Wagga Wagga, and increased its use of social media through the Library. A part promoting the survey, cash prizes were offered to library users to participate in the evaluation. Two of the four winners, medical radiation science student Mr Thomas Belling and Master of Health Science Honours student Ms Di Wintle, were presented certificates by Vice-Chancellor Professor Andrew Vann at the Convention Centre at CSU in Wagga Wagga on Tuesday 6 November.

In a first for Australia, a new research network will be launched at Charles Sturt University (CSU) on Thursday 8 November to focus on environmental justice and governance in Australia. The new group is part of CSU’s Institute for Land Water and Society (ILWS)  and will be known as the Environmental Justice and Governance for Social Change Strategic Research Area. Co-leaders of the new group, Dr Helen Masterman-Smith, an environmental sociologist, and Associate Professor Vaughan Higgins, a rural sociologist, said, “This new Strategic Research Area is one of the first research concentrations or networks in Australia that focuses on the fields of justice and governance in environmental issues, including climate change.” To launch the new group, a public workshop, Environmental Justice and Governance: Strategies for building environmentally sustainable and socially just communities will be held from 10 to 4pm on Thursday 8 November at the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at CSU in Wagga Wagga. Pre-eminent Australian environmental sociologist, Professor Stewart Lockie from The Australian National University, will give the keynote address from 10.30am to 12noon. . To RSVP, contact Dr John Rafferty on 02 6051 9406 or email. A full workshop program is available from the ILWS here.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange will host a public lecture on Friday 2 November examining the biggest change in the delivery of education since the advent of the personal computer. CSU Associate Professor Philip Uys, Director of Strategic Learning and Teaching Innovation at the University's Division of Learning and Teaching Services,  will deliver the lecture and said ‘mobile learning’ technology was poised to revolutionise education. CSU has been engaged in mobile learning since it began to offer podcasts in 2008, allowing students to download recordings of lectures they could listen to on their mobile devices at their own convenience. Since then the University has added mobile interfaces to an ‘e-portfolio’ system that students can use to build an online portfolio of their work, and to a ‘CSU Replay’ facility which offers audio and video recordings of lectures and other material available for download through Apple’s ‘iTunes U’. The current focus is on developing educational material that can be shared across a number of mobile devices and consumed by students in short bursts throughout the day. Read more on CSU News here.

Shiftwork impacts on many women employed in Australia today and a Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher seeks Registered Nurses in the NSW central west to participate in interviews to learn about how it affects them and their families. Ms Annabel Matheson, a lecturer and PhD researcher at the CSU School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health in Bathurst, says her research aims to understand the shiftwork experience of Registered Nurses who have care responsibilities for children. “My research will explore the personal, social, health and financial impacts for women who work shiftwork while caring for children,” Ms Matheson said. “The research is a qualitative study and the data will be collected by me during individual confidential face-to-face interviews.” Registered Nurses who are interested in participating in the research can contact Ms Matheson on (02) 6338 4086 or email.

Nursing student from Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga, Ms Carol Mudford, has been recognised for her enthusiasm for nursing in rural and remote areas with a national award. The 26 year old, who has also studied with the Flying Fruit Flies and completed her schooling at Beechworth Secondary College, was one of five students nationally to be accepted into the Emerging Nurse Leader (ENL) Program sponsored by the Australian College of Nursing. Born on a sheep-wheat farm near Gilgandra in the NSW central west, Ms Mudford has completed an Arts degree and travelled and worked around Australia and overseas before becoming a volunteer leader at Mittagundi Outdoor Education Centre, an adventure program for young people on a farm in the Victorian High Plains. “That experience motivated me to pursue a career in nursing, with which I hope to work for rural and remote communities,” Ms Mudford said. “My varied life experiences, particularly at Mittagundi, have helped me appreciate community relationships and activities, so I have been motivated to become involved with local and national health student networks.”

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange will host a special graduation on Tuesday 30 October, when about 70 primary school students don the mortar boards as part of Check It Out Day. Year 6 pupils, from Parkes Public and Parkes East Public schools, will spend the day at CSU and will take a selection of specially prepared classes to give them a first-hand experience of university life. A graduation ceremony will be held where students will dress in mortar boards  and gowns and receive a certificate. The Check It Out Day is part of the University’s Future Moves program, designed to build aspirations for tertiary study among students in rural and remote NSW and Victoria. Read more here. The program is aimed at students who have the potential to succeed in tertiary education and who come from families with little or no experience of higher education.

Almost 280 000 Australians suffer from dementia and Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher Dr Adam Hamlin will discuss what happens to the brain as we age at a free public lecture in West Wyalong on Thursday 25 October. Dr Hamlin, from CSU’s School of Biomedical Sciences, will outline current breakthroughs in our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and what scientists are doing to find potential treatments for these conditions. “One of the greatest challenges of modern neuroscience is to understand what happens to the brain as we age and why it becomes vulnerable to diseases such as Alzheimer’s,” he said. “At the moment there’s no cure and no drugs that slow the progression of the disease. If we are going to find a cure or a treatment we must be able to detect it early.” A National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow, Dr Hamlin is carrying out research to discover more about brain cell death in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Read more on CSU News here.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange will have a bigger-than-usual footprint at the Australian National Field Days when it unveils its new, larger, outdoor site today. The University has traditionally been represented with a stand in the education pavilion at the annual event, but School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences academic Ms Shevahn Telfser said this year’s larger stand would provide space for interactive demonstrations. “The stand will feature a horse skeleton which visitors can help assemble as they learn the names of each part, and a display of common and not-so-common fruits and vegetables which visitors can examine and name,” Ms Telfser said. “The idea is to engage visitors with some fun, educational activities they will be required to complete in order to earn a visitor’s bag. The Field Days is a great opportunity to not only show school-aged visitors what Charles Sturt University can offer them, but to also demonstrate our continuing commitment to agricultural science and business degrees in Orange.” The Australian National Field Days will run from today Tuesday 16 October to Thursday 18 October at Borenore near Orange.