Final year high school students around Australia are receiving their final results and making big decisions about their futures - What do I want to do? Do I study or work next year? Where do I study? Charles Sturt University (CSU) is helping these students make informed decisions with a series of Change of Preference Information Sessions on all campuses next week. CSU Market Development Manager Ms Cheryl Howell says these sessions will help students and their parents think about study options for 2010 at CSU, with academics and support staff available for discussions. "If prospective students want to discuss our courses, preference options, school results or living and learning at CSU, they can attend one of these sessions being run throughout the University's region," said Ms Howell. Victorian students can call CSU on (02) 6051 9962 or 1800 334 733 to discuss their options before their change of preference period closes.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga has nearly completed the move of students, staff and facilities from its former location in Albury city to the award-winning ‘greenfields’ site at Thurgoona. Head of CSU in Albury-Wodonga, Professor Allan Curtis, is excited about having all CSU staff and students on one site for the first time since 1995. “We will have nearly 1 900 full-time students and 300 staff   in Thurgoona from February 2010, including the Schools of Community Health, Environmental Sciences, Business, Accounting and Computing, and the Murray School of Education. During the past three years, we have completed over $45 million worth of buildings to help consolidate Charles Sturt University in Albury-Wodonga, including a new Learning Commons, laboratories, learning areas and student accommodation. We are currently completing the refurbishment of the iconic Gordon Beavan and former State Forestry buildings in time for the start of the 2010 academic year.” Building will continue at the campus next year, with the recent start of a dental clinic and planning is underway for a childcare and ‘early years’ research centre.  The CSU Allied Health Clinic will remain on the corner of Olive and Guinea Streets, Albury,  near CSU’s neighbouring Nowik Theatre.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Health, The Hon. Mark Butler, MP, will officially open the School of Dentistry and Health Sciences building at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga from 10.30am on Wednesday 16 December. The Vice-Chancellor and President of CSU, Professor Ian Goulter, will also attend the opening, which will include a tour of the new teaching, research and academic facilities in the two-storey complex. The building houses a 24-chair Dental and Oral Health Clinic; a patient waiting room; reception and patient counselling/liaison room; academic offices; research facilities; a 20-place simulation laboratory with practise models for teaching pre-clinical skills; and teaching areas including a specialist science teaching laboratory, lecture theatres, and seminar and scenario rooms. Read more about the award winning building at CSU in Wagga Wagga here.

One of Australia’s largest architectural practices has been appointed as principal Design Consultant for the National Life Sciences Hub planned for Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga. BVN Architecture has been selected by the University for the $41.67 million dollar project. In the Federal Budget in May 2009, the Commonwealth announced $34 million in new funding for CSU for the construction of the National Life Sciences Hub. CSU is contributing a further $7.67 million towards the project. The new facility will include a Learning and Teaching Laboratory Complex, Research Laboratories, Glasshouse Complex and Controlled-Environment Facilities, Field Laboratory, and support and office facilities. “BVN Architecture was appointed to the project after a significant tender process that attracted more than 20 high quality submissions,” said Mr Stephen Butt, the Executive Director of the Division of Facilities Management at CSU. “With a strong history in tertiary education construction projects, BVN Architecture has a firm understanding of laboratory design and construction as well as the design considerations for university teaching environments.” Read more about the National Life Sciences Hub here.

A ceremony to honour the significant contributions eight individuals have made to Charles Sturt University (CSU) and its predecessor institutions will be held in Wagga Wagga on Thursday 17 December. The honorary naming ceremony of student residential accommodation at CSU in Wagga Wagga is part of the University’s 20th Anniversary celebrations in 2009. Similar ceremonies have been held at Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Dubbo, and Orange throughout 2009. Those to be honoured at the ceremony in Wagga Wagga include Mrs Jane Asimus, Mrs Anne Brassil, Mr Peter Gissing, Professor Richard Johnstone, Mr John Mahon, Emeritus Professor Bruce Mansfield, AM, Emeritus Professor Ted Wolfe and Mr Rodney Parsons, OAM.

After flying through the air and around the world, Charles Sturt University (CSU) student Mr Rick Resijan swapped the stage for the classroom for a while in order to complete a degree in primary education at CSU in Ontario. Born in Hamilton and raised in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Mr Resijan moved to Toronto to study fine arts and then joined the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School in New York, USA. “In the past 20 years I have danced in such classic ballets as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Firebird and Cinderella, as well as contemporary ballets such as Prodigal Son, a rock ballet to music by The Doors,” he said. “A special job at this time was working with the children’s theatre company New York Theatre Ballet, and I suppose this also captured my interest in teaching children. I am now back in Canada while I study at CSU, but I can’t stop dancing – I have a few projects with the Victoria Ballet Academy in Toronto and am appearing in The Nutcracker in Richmond Hill, Toronto. I would love to combine my love for dance with teaching to work in an arts-oriented school.”

What does religion have to do with farming – and vice versa? Quite a lot, according to Dr Judith Crockett, lecturer in social sustainability at the Orange Campus of Charles Sturt University. She identified three distinct groups of farming families: the non-religious, the religious – who make occasional trips to church, often for social reasons, and Christian, whose “whole lives are permeated by their Christian beliefs and values”. These families tend to exhibit quite distinct gender and family relationships, have fewer problems with “succession planning” - the transfer of the farm between generations – and, “many are very progressive sustainable managers of land, very involved in Landcare as well as broader community activities,” said Dr Crockett. “That is because they see themselves as caretakers of the land rather than the owners of it.”

The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Koori Admissions Program (KAP) will run at the University’s Dubbo Campus this week. The manager of the University’s Indigenous Student Services, Mr Ray Eldridge, said KAP is an alternative entry program designed for Indigenous students. “KAP allows the staff of the Indigenous Student Services on our various campuses to assess the individual’s level of skills need to complete tertiary study and to offer successful participants a place in a course at CSU,” Mr Eldridge said. “This program provides a ‘test drive’ of life at university by allowing prospective students to meet staff and current Indigenous students, and experience and explore the facilities, courses and the career paths that may open to them.” For more information contact the Barramielinga Indigenous Student Services at CSU at Dubbo on 6885 7305 or visit here.

The Rafters Bar at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst throbbed with the sound of camaraderie on Sunday night 29 November when hundreds of Australian and international road-based gravity sports champions and competitors celebrated with their families and supporters at the 2009 Newton’s Playground party and presentation ceremony following three days of world-class thrills and spills on the neighbouring Mount Panorama motor racing circuit. About 200 competitors from every state in Australia and from Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Britain, the United States, France and Malaysia gathered for the second Newton’s Playground, a world championship event for skateboard, street luge, in-line skates, and gravity bikes staged at Mount Panorama under the auspices of the Australian Skateboard Racing Association (ASRA) and the International Gravity Sports Association (IGSA). One of the event organisers, Mr James Hopkin, from Hopkin Skate, said the aim was to develop Newton’s Playground year by year, and that meant choosing a date when CSU students were in town. “We love Mount Panorama and Bathurst, and want to engage the Bathurst community as we develop this great event. That also means involving Charles Sturt University students as potential competitors, spectators and support workers. For example, former CSU student Mr David Robinson, who graduated from the CSU School of Communication in Bathurst in 1988, played a leading technical role by enabling videoing and live web-casting of the event,” Mr Hopkin said. CSU Student Services Officer, Ms Alex Leis, who liaised with the organisers for their four-day post-competition use of The Rafters Bar food and beverage facilities, said it was a happy collaboration to have the gravity racers use the CSU facilities.