Charles Sturt University (CSU) has risen to the task of finding new ways to promote careers in agriculture, an industry which continues to demand skilled professionals to meet the challenges posed by a changing climate and the global demand for food. The School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences at CSU in Orange and Wagga Wagga has launched the ‘Partners in Agricultural Education’, a collaboration with 30 of agriculture’s leading companies to offer final-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science students the opportunity to spend time in a workplace with skilled mentors. The initiative is in response to confronting statistics that reveal the number of people with tertiary qualifications in the agricultural sector is just seven per cent compared to the national average of 22 per cent in other sectors. Companies involved in the scheme were recently thanked at a function at CSU in Wagga Wagga. Coordinator of the new professional placement subject offered in the Bachelor of Agricultural Science, CSU lecturer Dr Alison Southwell, said, “For students thinking about taking up a degree in agricultural science this opportunity will be a real drawcard. For current students it will build real technical competency in the area of agriculture they hope to pursue, as well as developing the professional skills enabling them to become the industry’s future leaders.” Students will begin applying for placements with participating companies in 2010.

Radio 2MCE, the community broadcasting service operated on behalf of Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst, was recently named an award winner at the annual Community Broadcasting Association of Australia national conference at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane on 20-22 November. Ms Michelle O’Connor, the Programming and Production Coordinator at 2MCE who was present to accept the award, said staff at the station were very pleased to be recognised by their sector peers in winning the ‘Most Innovative Outside Broadcast or Special Event Broadcast’ award for 2MCE’s Sounds Live project in 2009. “Sounds Live was a live music festival, and a major live-broadcast feat for a community radio station. It featured the Sounds Live Cabaret, held in conjunction with Local Stages and Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, the Sounds Live Acoustic concert at the CSU Ponton Theatre, and more than 15 live-to-air performances from our 2MCE studio. During the week we heard jazz, classical, acoustic, cabaret, dance, folk and country music from local musicians and two live concerts broadcast on 2MCE,” Ms O’Connor said.

A rare collection of framed photos, books and a highly significant 1842 plan of the Wellwood pastoral property will be donated to Orange City Council by Charles Sturt University (CSU) at a ceremony on Thursday 10 December. The Wellwood Collection was given to the Orange Agricultural College in 1969 when the Wellwood property was considered as a possible site for the College and although Rosedale Park was acquired as the site, the collection has remained with CSU and its predecessor institutions for nearly 40 years. CSU’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Ian Goulter, said the Wellwood Estate Collection was a valuable asset for local history and as such was better located with Orange City Council. The council plans to have the collection documented and made accessible online and through exhibitions.

Having lost contact for decades, two friends will reunite 8 000 kilometres from their homeland, when a visiting Vice-Chancellor of an Indian university and now-Hindu monk meets with Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Dr Anantanarayanan Raman in Orange. A senior lecturer in ecological agriculture, Dr Raman has coordinated the visit of his dear friend Swami Atmapriyananda who is visiting from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math (near Calcutta), West Bengal, India. During his stay in Orange, Swami Atmapriyananda will give a public lecture at CSU in Orange titled Interfacing Physics with Philosophy: the Spiritual Journey of an Indian Monk. “We used to work together at a university in India,” Dr Raman said. “Since then my friend has become a monk and I have moved to Australia. We haven’t seen each other for decades, so I’m looking forward to taking him to visit ecologically sustainable enterprises in Orange.”

Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) affiliation with the Ajisai Nursing College (ANC) in Minokamo in Japan will be further enhanced when Sally Ellis, a Bachelor of Nursing student at CSU Dubbo, visits Kizawa Memorial Hospital and the ANC this month. For ten years now, Japanese students who have completed ANC’s three-year nursing diploma have been able to undertake a conversion degree to a full Bachelor of Health Science (Nursing) at CSU, which includes clinical placements at Dubbo Base and Lourdes Hospital. Ms Ellis says she wants to “develop an insight into transcultural nursing and Asian culture”, and will look at “health care delivery for the older person, and community care”. She has also been invited to observe at an open-heart operation. CSU has committed $2 000 to Ms Ellis’s trip. “It wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the support of CSU,” she said. Heather Bell, Manager of Campus Services at CSU Dubbo, said, “This is a great example of the University providing support to students to internationalise their degree.”

There are many charities and fundraisers vying for the public’s money to support international humanitarian and developmental efforts. A small group of Charles Sturt University (CSU) staff is contributing to a little-known group building a school in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa. The African non-government organisation (NGO) Mission in Health Care and Development (MHCD) provides assistance in communities straddling the DRC, Rwandan and Burundi borders which have suffered from years of war and unrest. The NGO is involved in health care, food production, and its education project aims to erect school buildings for the students who have never before had access to a school. CSU staff member Mr William Adlong says the group of six Learning and Teaching Services staff were among those who originally contributed the prize from an award win of $100 last year, and who’ve since started contributing individually through regular deductions from their pay. “We recently received an email from Dr Luc at the school at Korohoro. He said two mud brick buildings were completed but they would use a tarpaulin until they raised enough money to roof the building with iron. He is concerned that the buildings will deteriorate through the rainy season,” Mr Adlong said. “I think we each feel that what we contribute is a small amount for us, but a few of these contributions together actually make up a salary for a teacher. We love the idea that we’re contributing to the education of, and a better future for, children, especially those growing up where there has been such strife,” he said.

A short film by Charles Sturt University (CSU) adjunct senior lecturer in history Dr Robin McLachlan will have its first public test screening on Wednesday 2 November. The 20 minute-long film, The Letter, stars another CSU adjunct lecturer, Mr Bill Blaikey (and his co-star dog, Merry), from the School of Communication in Bathurst. Dr McLachlan said the film developed from and is part of his international research into the participation by Australians and New Zealanders in the 1897-99 Klondike gold rush in north-west Canada. “This was the first significant wave of Australians and New Zealanders to leave the southern hemisphere to seek their fortunes in the northern hemisphere. During the course of my research I found numerous letters from them to home, as well as a unique complete run of a Dawson City, Canada, newspaper, The Klondyke Miner and Yukon Advertiser, held by the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia,” Dr McLachlan said. “The script for The Letter is based closely on historical evidence from first-hand accounts published in Australian newspapers at the time, as well as information gleaned from Yukon archives and published histories.”

An international education program that encourages high school students from underrepresented low income groups in society to go to university will meet with Border education leaders on Monday 7 December at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Hosted by CSU’s Murray School of Education, representatives from the US-based Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program will meet with secondary school principals from NSW and Victoria, representatives from the Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, curriculum developers, school administrators and parent organisations to discuss and promote their program. Meeting coordinator Dr Sally Knipe has led visits by groups of CSU middle school teaching students to AVID professional development conferences for the past three years. These students have then become tutors in local AVID programs. “AVID is an internationally recognised program that prepares students who would not go to university for tertiary studies. The program serves nearly 400 000 students in the US and 16 countries and US territories around the world.” The day’s discussions will include how AVID has been implemented on the Border with the assistance of CSU students. The meeting will run from 9am to 3pm on 7 December at CSU’s Albury-Wodonga Campus, off Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, Thurgoona.

The sixth edition of a key text advising occupational therapists on working with people with physical impairments will be launched at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga on Friday 4 December. CSU academic staff in the occupational therapy course at the School of Community Health provided substantial contributions to Occupational Therapy and Physical Dysfunction: Enabling Occupation. Course coordinator Dr Michael Curtin was the book’s leading editor. “This edition of the book is significantly different to the previous editions in an attempt to respond to international changes within the profession,” Dr Curtin said. “This book shows how an occupational perspective can be used in practising occupational therapy.” Occupational Therapy and Physical Dysfunction: Enabling Occupation will be launched at 4.30pm on Friday 4 December in CSU’s The Cedars building, Olive Street, Albury.