The social, sporting and cultural side of university life will be on show this Friday 2 March when the annual Club’s Day is held at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga. Hosted by the University’s Student Services, approximately 30 student clubs will be vying for new members from 1pm to 5pm outside the food and beverage venue, eat@20. The student organisations will range from football, hockey and netball clubs, to clubs aligned with courses such as animal science, oral health and acting. Students are being encouraged to join a club to enhance their University experiences. One of the clubs looking for new members will be the University’s Fire Twirling Club. Vice-president and CSU Bachelor of Information Technology, Mr Allan Buckman, said the club had 22 members in 2011 and performed at several student events on-campus last year and again during the recent Orientation Week.

A multi-million dollar makeover of the William Merrylees Library at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga is getting its first real test this week as new and continuing students commence their on-campus classes for the new academic year. The four-storey building has undergone a $7.5 million dollar refurbishment over the past year to create a Library Learning Commons for students. The project includes library facilities, public and private study spaces, computer laboratories, formal and casual learning spaces, researchers' rooms, parents' rooms for students with small children, a mix of group study and multimedia spaces, and a new café called Common Crust with indoor and outdoor seating. Executive Director of the University’s Division of Facilities Management, Mr Stephen Butt, said, “One of the main attractions of the new Library Learning Commons is 24-hour access for students to computing facilities and online resources on the first and second floors. Similar Library Learning Commons are used by students at CSU in Albury-Wodonga and Bathurst.” The project has been funded by CSU and the Federal Government's Teaching and Learning Capital Fund.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga has welcomed more than 60 new international students from countries including South Korea, Japan, Colombia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  Among them is PhD student Mr Muhammad Shoaib Tufail, from Pakistan. Mr Tufail’s research through CSU’s School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences focuses on the development of village-based forage seed production enterprises to make small farms more sustainable. “I’ve worked with Charles Sturt University under Australian Support Linkage Program (ASLP) in Pakistan and I’m pleased to continue that association with research that has the potential to benefit millions of small, mixed farms in my country,” he said. Mr Tufail has embraced student life, taking on a role leading the International Student Club at CSU. The new international students had a chance to mingle at an informal morning tea hosted by the Learning Skills staff within the University’s Academic Support in Wagga Wagga on Friday 24 February. The International Student Club is one of a number of organisations involved in Club’s Day at CSU in Wagga Wagga on Friday 2 March. Read more here.

Australian actress Ms Lyn Collingwood will be in Wagga Wagga this week to launch the 2012 season of the University Theatre Ensemble (UTE) on Wednesday 14 March. Well known for her long-running role as Colleen Smart on the television show, Home and Away, Ms Collingwood’s career in film, television and on stage spans 37 years. Lecturer with the Charles Sturt University (CSU) School of Communication and Creative Industries, Mr John Saunders, said, “It is indeed a great honour to have Lyn visit us as the special guest at the launch. I remember vividly her remarkable performance as Dot Cook (Mum) in the Riverina Theatre Company’s One Day of the Year back in the early nineties.” The UTE season launch will take place on Wednesday 14 March at The Riverina Playhouse, Cross Street in Wagga Wagga from 7pm to approximately 8pm.

A new seminar series from Charles Sturt University (CSU) and Wagga Wagga City Council to assist local small businesses kicks off in the city this week, with a session on marketing. Dr Lan Snell and Dr Heather Crawford from the University’s School of Management and Marketing will present the first seminar from 5.30pm to 7.30pm on Wednesday 14 March in the Civic Centre, Baylis Street in Wagga Wagga. The session will explore marketing issues facing small businesses, including digital marketing, an introduction to online consumer behaviour, search engine marketing, and the application of various social media tools for marketing. Further seminars in the series on finance and human resources will be held in April and June. Read more on CSU News here.

The Booranga Writers’ Centre at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga will welcome its first writer-in-residence for 2012, with the arrival of Ms Jennifer Mills. The South Australian-based author has written the novels The Diamond Anchor (2009) and Gone (2011), both published by University of Queensland Press, and the poetry collection Treading Earth (2008). A collection of short stories, The Rest Is Weight, will be released this year. Ms Mills won the 2008 Marian Eldridge Award for Young Emerging Women Writers, the Pacific Region of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition in 2008-9, and the 2008 Northern Territory Literary Awards: Best Short Story. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Hecate, Overland, Heat, the Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, and New Australian Stories, and she is a regular contributor to New Matilda and Overland. During her residency until Friday 30 March, Ms Mills will be special guest at a writers’ workshop from 2pm on Saturday 24 March at the Booranga Writers’ Centre, building 410, McKeown Drive, CSU in Wagga Wagga and at a public reading at the Riverina Regional Library in Baylis Street in Wagga Wagga from 5pm on Wednesday 28 March.

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.

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.

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.