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.

A peregrine falcon chick is the newest resident at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange. The fledgling hatched from the one of two eggs produced this season by CSU’s resident pair of peregrine falcons, known as Beau and Swift, and was named Snow in reference to the August snowfall in which the egg was laid. The falcons have been permanent residents at the University since 2007, when staff first noticed them hunting from the iconic water tower on campus. CSU staff mounted a nesting box in the tower and fitted it with two video cameras, and the falcons quickly moved in and raised eight healthy chicks there over the following four breeding seasons. The project has been supported by the RAAF 30 Squadron Beaufighters, whose emblem is the peregrine falcon and whose motto is ‘Strike swiftly’, so the two adult birds have been named Swift (female) and Beau (male). This year Swift laid two eggs, but one was lost when it became stuck in Beau’s plumage as he left the nest. Footage from the nest-box cameras has been available on the FalconCamProject website since 2007 but this is the first year a formal study of the birds’ behaviour has been conducted. The site is one of only a handful in the world where a breeding pair of peregrines can be monitored around the clock, because peregrines normally choose to nest in very inaccessible places like cliff faces and quarries.

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.

For the first time in 12 years, Wagga Wagga will be represented in the NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout, and Charles Sturt University (CSU) is proud to be the team’s major sponsor. The competition will be held at Raymond Terrace, near Newcastle, from Friday 28 September to Monday 1 October and is one of the largest Indigenous sporting events in the country. CSU is sponsoring the Murrumbidgee Wagga Crows team who will play their first game at 2.30pm on Saturday 29 September. Murrumbidgee Wagga Crows Secretary, Ms Donna Murray, said bringing the club back to life is about more than football. “It means a lot for the local Indigenous community to have a team in this competition, because it’s about cultural identity and playing passionately for Wagga Wagga,” she said. “Our players are also positive role models for younger boys and girls in promoting healthy lives.” CSU has a strong commitment to the participation of Indigenous Australians in all aspects of higher education. Read more about CSU’s Indigenous Education Strategy here.

As Year 12 students continue sitting their Higher School Certificate (HSC), latest performance research on the NSW HSC Online study resource by Internet research company Hitwise shows it is in the top 10 education websites in Australia. Now in its tenth year, NSW HSC Online was heralded for providing access to quality learning resources, especially for students in rural and remote areas. The current performance data support this success in providing equity, with high use by students living in provincial centres, who traditionally have below average use of the Internet. There were also more boys than average for an educational website going to HSC Online in the lead-up to the HSC, with 58 per cent males and 42 per cent females using www.hsc.csu.edu.au. The research also revealed excellent brand recognition and a strong association of the site with CSU. Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration) Professor Lyn Gorman said the website’s success highlights its value in bringing high quality resources to all HSC students, regardless of where they live. The NSW HSC Online project was initiated and continues to be maintained and updated by the University in collaboration with the NSW Department of Education and Training.

Reports on support projects by graduating CSU speech pathology students in a number of Border schools will highlight the annual Speech Pathology Conference starting tomorrow (Wednesday 1 November) in Albury. The projects, completed in primary schools as far away as Corowa, Henty and Holbrook, introduced the latest communication speech and communication techniques into these smaller rural schools through student groups supervised by CSU academic Dr Ruth Beecham. The conference, titled Crossing Borders, allows all speech pathology students completing their studies this year to formally present their own clinical work experiences to peers. The conference will start at 2pm on Wednesday 1 November in the Nowik Auditorium, Guinea St, Albury, and continue to 3.30pm on Thursday 2 November.

Research that defines the NSW central west labour market will be presented at a lunchtime seminar from 12.30pm to 2pm at Charles Sturt University’s Bathurst Campus on Wednesday 1 November. Dr Parikshit Basu from the School of Marketing & Management will present work based on research he co-authored with Professor John Hicks and Richard Sappey. Titled Overview of an ‘Established Rural Regional Inland’ Australian Labour Market Dr Basu analyses the operation of a local labour market in the NSW Central West, the oldest European-settled inland region of mainland Australia. It seeks to contribute to a classification of labour markets that would be useful for forming policies at local, State and Federal levels. The seminar will be held in Syndicate Room 2 in the Centre for Professional Development, CSU Bathurst Campus, from 12.30 pm.

Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) lawn bowls team has claimed its second consecutive national title, winning gold at the Australian University Games (AUG) in Adelaide. CSU’s University Team Manager, Mr Nik Granger, said the team had won five of its seven pool games to qualify third for the playoffs behind the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of NSW (UNSW). “We lost to both UWA and UNSW in the pool stage, but we beat UNSW in the semi-final and the team was confident it could knock over UWA in the final,” he said. CSU first earned a place in the top-tier of the AUG in 2009 and won a first division bronze in 2010 before taking the national lawn bowls title last year. Mr Granger said the past 10 years had seen a sharp increase in the standard of competition at the games, which were now Australia’s largest annual multi-sport event. “You’ve got Olympians, Commonwealth Games medallists and state and national representatives throughout the competition,” he said. “CSU had students from our Albury-Wodonga, Wagga Wagga and Bathurst campuses competing alongside several distance education students.” Meanwhile, CSU’s Ultimate Frisbee team was awarded the ‘Spirit of the Games’ award, as voted by all 25 teams competing in the sport.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange will have a bigger-than-usual footprint at this year’s Australian National Field Days when it unveils its larger outdoor site. The University has traditionally had 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 including a horse skeleton which visitors can help assemble and a display of common and not-so-common fruits and vegetables for visitors to name. “This year we want to engage visitors with fun, educational activities they can complete to earn their visitor’s bag,” Ms Telfser said. “The Field Days help show school-aged visitors what Charles Sturt University can offer them and demonstrates our continuing commitment to agricultural science and business degrees on the Orange Campus.” The Australian National Field Days will run from Tuesday 16 October to Thursday 18 October at Borenore, near Orange, NSW.