Orange residents with the cycling bug can get into the spirit of NSW Bike Week by joining Charles Sturt University (CSU) staff and students and the Orange Bicycle User Group (BUG) on a bicycle orienteering ride on Sunday 23 September. Starting and finishing at the CSU Cellar Door, the ride will let riders decide their own route by visiting check-points around north Orange and answering a simple question at each. All riders are welcome for the 15km event, which should take about two hours at an easy pace. The event will be one of two Bike Week rides for CSU campus staff and students, who will also embark on a ride-to-work event on Wednesday 19 September. This year’s ride is gearing up to be bigger than ever, beginning at Bill’s Beans in McLachlan Street at 8.30am before the ‘peleton’ heads down Leeds Parade to the campus for breakfast. CSU Campus Services Manager Mr Mark Chapman said while the ride-to-work event was for CSU staff and students, the orienteering ride on 23 September was open to the public. “The public event is aimed at participation so be sure and invite your family and friends,” he said. “The start time will be between 11am and noon, so come along and enjoy an easy afternoon cycling and even taste a CSU wine while you’re on our campus.”

Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) lawn bowls team travels to Adelaide next week to defend the national title it won at last year’s Australian University Games. The gold medal follows years of hard work for the team, which earned a place in the increasingly competitive competition’s top tier in 2009. The team won a first division bronze in 2010 and, finally, the long-awaited gold medal last year. CSU Student Support Team Leader Mr Nik Granger said the past 10 years had seen a sharp increase in the standards of competition at the games, which were now Australia’s largest annual multi-sport event. “You’ve got Olympians, Commonwealth Games medallists and various state and national representatives throughout the competition,” he said. “CSU will have students from our Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst and Wagga Wagga competing, as well as several distance education students.” CSU’s Ultimate Frisbee team will compete in division two this year with hopes of securing a gold or silver medal to earn elevation into division one for the 2013 games and the University team will also include individual representatives in cycling and athletics.

A team of Port Macquarie High School Year 11 business students has won a competition from 192 similar teams in 29 regional schools across NSW and Victoria. The ‘Jokers’ team, consisting of Mitchell Davis and Mark Han, was the overall winner in the year-long Game On competition run by Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Faculty of Business. Senior business teacher and competition coordinator in the local school, Ms Dianne Davison, said the students benefited from participating in the competition as it required them to analyse situations, study information and make complex and difficult decisions. “I am sure they have increased their interests in a business career as they experienced the thrill and challenge of making high level business decisions and saw the relevance of what they learned in their school courses,” Ms Davison said. The ‘virtual business’ the students ran in the simulation game was based on the automobile industry, where they needed to make decisions on human resources, marketing, operations and finance during the competition. The Dean of CSU’s Faculty of Business, Professor Lesley White, will present a prize of $2 500 to the winning school and team at 9am at Port Macquarie High School on Wednesday 10 October. Charles Sturt University will offer its Bachelor of Business Studies on its Port Macquarie Campus in 2013.

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 philosophical play written and directed by two Charles Sturt University (CSU) acdemics will have a second performance on Thursday 28 April due to popular demand as part of the current Greek Festival in Sydney. The play, Wise After the Fact, is by Dr Edward Spence, and is directed by Mr Ray Harding, both lecturers at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst. “Wise After the Fact examines the origins and development of Wisdom in ancient Greece, and juxtaposes this with the dilemmas confronting individuals and society in the present Age of Information,” Dr Spence said. “I also discuss philosophy with the audience, and the first performance (on 14 April) was so successful the festival organisers invited us to return.”

A senior Charles Sturt University (CSU) social researcher is leading research and discussion into the influence of globalisation on economic development and human security in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Manohar Pawar, a principal researcher in CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, believes globalisation “is good if it helps erradicate poverty and reduce global inequalities”. In October, Dr Pawar organised a major international conference on the topic in Thailand, in collaboration with Thailand’s Thammasat University and Taisho and Kyushu universities, Japan. “Confronted by extreme poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, disorder and violence and many other social problems, the conference delegates presented positive examples from the region showing that alternative social development approaches must include and allow participation in the planning and implementation of projects by the people affected by them,” Dr Pawar said.

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) education researcher is starting a study that focuses on young children identified as being gifted. PhD student with the CSU School of Education, Ms Nikki Masters, said the study aims to find out more about the experiences of children identified as gifted as they begin their primary schooling. “For a child identified as gifted, the transition to school may bring different challenges. For example, children already reading may stop reading in the first weeks of school, having realised that other children did not read and were not expected to. When these children are left without appropriate support, emotional, social or behavioural difficulties may occur. While the educational needs of all children must be considered, the intellectual, social and emotional needs of gifted children should be also considered in their schooling.” Ms Masters is seeking children aged four or five years old who are currently attending a pre-school in Albury or surrounding Riverina district during 2012 and will start school in 2013 to gather their stories, as well as the stories of their parents, carers and educators. These children should have been identified as gifted by either their parent or their pre-school teacher. For further details about the research project, send Ms Masters an email.

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.

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.