Whether noodles and bread are made out of the same flour will be discovered by high school students at an agriculture enrichment day in Wagga Wagga on Monday 4 September. One hundred students from around the Riverina region will receive hands-on experience during the day at the E H Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation between 9am and 2.30pm. The Year 10 and 11 students will see what it is like to work in the field of agricultural science with practical activities that are currently used to solve problems in agriculture. Other activities include “What weed is that?”, ”Check out salinity in our waterways”, “How do you transfer a virus in the plant world?” and ”Explore the world of plant DNA”. The E H Graham Centre is an alliance between Charles Sturt University (CSU) and NSW Department of Primary Industries.

Australia’s Young Endeavour national youth sail training program “builds positive social capital” according to a study released by the Federal Government. Charles Sturt University students Sarah Poulos and Tom Fisher agree. “I sailed a few years ago and met a whole group of absolutely fantastic people,” says Sarah, currently in her fourth year of a special education teaching degree on Dubbo Campus and the recipient of a two-year scholarship from the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. Tom sailed in July and says “it was awesome. It exceeded my expectations tenfold. You build personal confidence which gives you the ability to do anything you want.” Tom is an agribusiness student from Wagga Wagga Campus who went on a student exchange to Kentucky, USA last year for six months, and is off to Japan soon on a Mitsui travel scholarship.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism graduate, Courtney Trenwith has won the Minister’s Award for Excellence at the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) Excellence in Education Journalism Awards. Ms Trenwith received $3 000, as well as high praise for her work. Chair of the ACDE, CSU’s Associate Professor Jo-anne Reid, said Ms Trenwith’s submission was “absolutely outstanding. I was especially impressed that Courtney looked at the human side of education, not just the big issues”. Ms Trenwith says she arrived at the Awards ceremony in Canberra expecting to receive the News category, and was stunned to receive the overall excellence award. She says she loves her work at the Illawarra Mercury newspaper, saying “education was the only round I ever wanted to do”.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) is expanding the number of student Accommodation Residences as a major initiative in response to demand from prospective students and their families. CSU’s acting Executive Director of Student Services, Andrew Callander said the University is planning to substantially increase the number of beds available for students and to increase the variety and type of accommodation available. Initially CSU will add around 170 beds by 2009 on all its major campuses: Albury-Wodonga Campus: 48 new beds to come onto the Thurgoona site; Bathurst Campus: Four eight-bed cottages to open by February 2007; Dubbo Campus: Fully commissioning of new student accommodation totalling 62 places; Orange Campus: Converted cottages for 20 students on the CSU Orange Campus; Wagga Wagga Campus: Two eight-bed cottages to come on stream by February each year from 2007 to 2009. A 20-bed complex using funds from a bequest to the University will be built in 2007. “We are also planning for a large scale project to add 600 new beds to meet increasing demand for on-campus accommodation on our Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst and Wagga Wagga campuses,” Mr Callander said. The project will expand the range of accommodation offered and take the total beds available for students on campus at CSU to around 3 000.

Child protection, genocide, substance abuse, the justice system and the delivery of mental health services to Aboriginal people are among topics to be presented by mental health degree students this week at a conference at Charles Sturt University’s Wagga Wagga Campus on Wednesday 27 September. The conference, titled Footprints: Many Nations on One Journey, is being organised by the students as part of their studies into the professional issues in Aboriginal mental health and will also bring together several guest speakers from State and Commonwealth authorities. Guest speakers are the Manager Clinical Partnerships, NSW Centre for Mental Health; Robyn Murray; Director of Social Health in the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Kate Gilbert; and Acting Director Adolescent Health, NSW Health, Catherine Lynch. CSU mental health course coordinator Jane Havelka said the student presentations and written reports will provide a valuable contribution to the published material on the issues in Aboriginal mental health.

Maintaining and upgrading skills, continuing professional education and accessing the latest research and expertise has been cited as major problems for attracting and keeping health professionals in regional Australia. Charles Sturt University (CSU), the NSW Greater Southern Area Health Service (GSAHS) and Occupational Therapy Australia (NSW) are collaborating to bring vital professional development to health clinicians in southern NSW. Over 30 occupational therapists from the region will update their skills and explore new forms of professional education at a two day workshop in Gundagai on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 August. CSU’s Professor of Occupational Therapy Gail Whiteford, Dr Michael Curtin and Clare Wilding will lead discussions in how to better train future occupational therapists for the region. GSAHS allied heath director Ros Bauer said the partnership between CSU, GSAHS and OT Australia will provide much needed professional support for clinicians in communities across the region and to explore new ways of delivering health services.

Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Wagga Wagga Campus will tomorrow host the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Chile’s Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), which is based in Quilamapu. It is envisaged that the MOU for Industry Cooperation will lead to the development of collaborative research programs in viticulture, oenology, precision agriculture, conservation farming, weed management, and olives and olive oil production, as well as exchange of research and technical staff and postgraduate students. The MOU will be signed by the CSU Chancellor Lawrie Willett, AO and the Chile Minister for Agriculture, Mr Alvaro Rojas.

The Rock Hill, a spectacular rocky outcrop south of Wagga Wagga which towers 250 metres above the surrounding countryside, has always been a significant landmark in Errol Fielder’s life. As a young boy, The Rock Hill was a constant focal point which marked Errol’s travels to and from the Riverina with his truckdriver father. Now The Rock Hill is the subject of a moving exhibition of landscape works by the Charles Sturt University (CSU) PhD candidate. Mr Fielder says his work attempts to demonstrate the shift away from the early 20th Century European painters who depicted the Australian landscape as unfamiliar and inert. “What I aspire to is embracing the spirituality expressed so beautifully by indigenous artists. The landscape of Australia is of more value to all Australians if, collectively, we recognise its mutual cross racial, or pluralist spiritual content. Australia is not just a quarry, a housing development or a big paddock.”

Two Charles Sturt University (CSU) postgraduate information technology (IT) students have won scholarships from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Foundation. At a presentation ceremony in Sydney today (Thursday 27 September) NSW Minister for Small Business, The Hon. David Campbell, said the scholarships represent an investment in NSW’s future skills base in information and communication technology. Joanne Hyde from Sydney and Douglas Parson from Canberra, ACT, work in IT businesses. The ACS Foundation has raised $8 million over five years towards 550 scholarships for NSW students.