An organisation aimed at lifting the profile of women in the Australian construction industry has honoured the work of a Charles Sturt University (CSU) distance education student with a national award. Fiona Shewring, who is studying for a Graduate Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (VET) at CSU, received an award from the National Association for Women in Construction. During the Association’s annual awards night at Sydney’s Town Hall at the end of May, Ms Shewring was presented the Acoustic Logic Consultancy Award. The annual event was attended by women managers, architects, developers and solicitors involved with the construction sector. The CSU student is employed by the Illawarra Institute of TAFE in Wollongong and during the past four years, has taught more than 100 women painting and decorating skills as part of TAFE NSW’s early pathways program known as Outreach. “The award for Fiona is a credit to her vocational training and work in breaking down the barriers within the trades sector for women,” said VET course coordinator Roslin Brennan-Kemmis.

The Vice-Chancellor and President of Charles Sturt University (CSU), Professor Andrew Vann, will host the 2013 Alumni and Community Cocktail Reception at the University in Port Macquarie on Monday 25 November. Dr Muyesser Durur, campus director of CSU in Port Macquarie, said, “This is becoming a wonderful annual event for our new campus and the University’s many alumni who live in the region. There are nearly 700 former graduates from all faculties and campuses who live on the Mid North Coast, so it is a great opportunity for them to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and consolidate and extend their professional and social networks. The event is also an opportunity for the University to acknowledge and thank the many people from the business, education and local government sectors and the wider Mid North Coast community who have been so supportive of the University in its first two years of operation. It has been a very dynamic period. The community has really embraced Charles Sturt University, which I believe has been in no small part due to the passion of the staff here and the commitment by everyone involved to share in our journey to contribute to the growth and wellbeing of the region.” The guest speaker at the event will be CSU alumnus and psychologist Mr John Nolan who has a practice in Port Macquarie.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) Honours student, James Bekkema, has won an Apple University Consortium Scholarship and will now attend The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to be held in San Francisco in August. Sue Moffatt, Head of CSU’s School of Information Technology, describes James as “one smart cookie”, saying the highly sought-after scholarship was won in a competitive national competition between 36 Australian universities. She says James is "an exceptional student who has done much of the Mac development work on his own initiative". The conference includes presentations, dinners, a tour of the US Apple Campus and a keynote speech by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. “I’m really looking forward to ‘Student Sunday’. I’m currently an Honours student, and this could well be my last year of University, so I'll be asking Apple computer representatives what they are looking for in a university student,” said Mr Bekkema.

Is there such a thing as a balanced assessment of the “Intelligent Design -Creation Science” controversy? Professor David Goldney from Charles Sturt University (CSU) believes so. The well-known scientist and environmental consultant, who has lived and worked in the Bathurst community since 1972, is a committed Christian and an Adjunct Professor at CSU. Professor Goldney estimates almost half the world’s scientists are Christian on some level, but still accept the theory of evolution, including himself. “While I’m a Christian, I’m committed to Darwinian evolution and I think the ‘Intelligent Design’ argument is way off track. There’s a continuum of people, from ‘flat earthers’ to creation scientists, with the view that evolution leads only to atheism and proves there is no God. Somewhere in there might be some middle ground.” Three public lectures are planned for June, where Professor Goldney will “go through the range of creation stories that a Christian might look at and still remain an honest scientist with integrity and accept faith”.

The good news is that Australian soldiers currently in East Timor probably won’t suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) upon their return home. The bad news is that the Iraq War veterans probably will, according to Sergeant Grant Coultman-Smith, a lecturer with Charles Sturt University (CSU). He should know - as a combat veteran, Sergeant Coultman-Smith has suffered from PTSD for over 36 years. He is a Vietnam veteran, worked in post-incident relief after Cyclone Tracy in Darwin and is now an Emergency Response Coordinator with Victoria Police. He is also a CSU Masters graduate in emergency management, a casual lecturer with the University’s School of Public Health and a qualified hostage negotiator. According to Sergeant Coultman-Smith, Vietnam veterans particularly suffer from PTSD because, in addition to the horrors and trauma they experienced, they faced a hostile Australian community and were not debriefed when they came home.

Staff and employees from Wangerang Industries in Orange will receive training at Charles Sturt University (CSU) today giving them a new range of work skills for the local viticulture industry. CSU Vineyard Manager, Peter Cannon, viticulture lecturer Peter Hedberg and horticulture lecturer John Eiseman have combined their knowledge to instruct employees in the specialist skills of vine pruning, spur pruning, safety and equipment handling and care. Wangerang Industries provide the region’s mentally and physically disabled with a chance to work. Wangerang Industries CEO, Marc Bonney is excited by the prospect of offering his employees skills in horticulture.

Over 100 Bathurst business and community identities have indicated they will attend the first Charles Sturt University (CSU) Business and Community reception to be held on Monday 5 June at 5pm. The function will highlight the integral role CSU has in the community, particularly with the business and education sectors. The reception will build closer links between the Bathurst community and the University and promote an understanding of CSU’s regional and community strategies. The Bathurst reception is the first in a series to be held across all CSU campuses in the coming months.

Charles Sturt University graduate David Ford has won the Great Australian Story Challenge with his short film, A Little Bit of Magic. David graduated this year with a Bachelor of Arts (Television Production), and will now spend three months working with Australian Story at ABC TV. “I have a lot of respect for both the program and the ABC. I feel I have the capacity to make good stories, but it is also knowing how to work within a particular production environment. I don’t know where it will take me or what it will hold but it is looking optimistic.” A Little Bit of Magic tells the story of Cliff Armitage, who had an amazing career change since being involved in the gun control policy formation after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. David says making the film was a challenge “because I was doing the lighting, sound and camera, as well as producing and directing and researching”. Last year David filmed a travelogue documentary about his time spent at an African AIDS orphanage, which airs in July on cable TV in Australia, and later in New Zealand and Indonesia.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Dr Keith Nesbitt’s research on a design pattern for complex systems has won him a 12-month postdoctoral appointment to the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) in Boston, USA. Dr Nesbitt, a lecturer in Information Technology at CSU, has been working in the relatively new field of science known as complex systems. The study of complex systems is about understanding indirect effects and the problems we find difficult to solve. They have causes and effects that are not obviously related. Examples of complex systems include beehives, ant colonies and even the stockmarket, as well as the human brain. NECSI, where Dr Nesbitt will be based, is an independent non-profit educational and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex systems. NECSI was established as a collaboration of faculty from Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Brandeis and other academic institutions. “I’m keen to take my research to the next level. That would be the ultimate goal: to try and understand what they call the theory of the mind”, said Dr Nesbitt.