A multi-million dollar makeover of the William Merrylees Library at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga is getting its first real test this week as new and continuing students commence their on-campus classes for the new academic year. The four-storey building has undergone a $7.5 million dollar refurbishment over the past year to create a Library Learning Commons for students. The project includes library facilities, public and private study spaces, computer laboratories, formal and casual learning spaces, researchers' rooms, parents' rooms for students with small children, a mix of group study and multimedia spaces, and a new café called Common Crust with indoor and outdoor seating. Executive Director of the University’s Division of Facilities Management, Mr Stephen Butt, said, “One of the main attractions of the new Library Learning Commons is 24-hour access for students to computing facilities and online resources on the first and second floors. Similar Library Learning Commons are used by students at CSU in Albury-Wodonga and Bathurst.” The project has been funded by CSU and the Federal Government's Teaching and Learning Capital Fund.

To a typical university student, 70 or 80 years of age seems positively ancient, while on the other hand, many 90 year olds dream of being an octogenarian again. With Dr Jack Cannon’s help, some of Bathurst’s frail elderly will regain some strength, balance and mobility, therefore “turning back the clock”. Dr Cannon is a lecturer with Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) School of Human Movement Studies. His research showed that resistance exercise can improve the quality of life in older women. For the past two years, he has been working with Bathurst residents over the age of 60 with remarkable results. Now it is the turn of Ilumba Gardens Retirement Village residents. “Generally we find the more frail people become, the more responsive they are. With a proper training routine you can turn some of that around in three weeks.” Dr Cannon is hoping the pilot program will expand in 2007.

It’s not just the lessons taught in the classroom that Charles Sturt University (CSU) student Mr Dave McGowen will remember from his recent exchange to Australia but those handed out on the football field. Mr McGowan was one of five students from CSU in Ontario who travelled to Australia to complete their final practicum for CSU’s Bachelor of Primary Education Studies. Mr McGowan spent three weeks at the Buninyong Public School in the regional NSW city of Dubbo. He said the experience has given him more examples of how to deal with different classroom situations. “The curriculum seemed pretty similar although I found the students were given more time to do the work and practise or think about things.” Mr McGowan also immersed himself in the local culture, playing a game of Australian Rules football. “The game was a lot of fun and much tougher than I had anticipated, as it was a full contact match against a good opponent,” he said. “Nonetheless I lived through it and have the battle scars to show for it. It was a truly authentic Aussie experience.”

After almost 32 years at Charles Sturt University (CSU), courses manager and accounting lecturer Doug Rolfe is retiring to a “hopefully less hectic life.” Retired life for Doug still sounds very busy - he will continue part time work at CSU Bathurst Campus and continue hobbies of bush walking, abseiling, canyoning and going to the gym. As an afterthought he added, “I’ll be the house husband I suppose for a bit.” He said the high points came late in his career at CSU, when he took on teaching the internship about six years ago. “It does give that interaction between University and employers and I think that is an important way to build relationships with industry, so I really valued that. I have also enjoyed my last three and a half years as course manager which gave me the opportunity to have input into Faculty student policies. I enjoyed the teaching too.”

The Booranga Writers’ Centre at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga will welcome its first writer-in-residence for 2012, with the arrival of Ms Jennifer Mills. The South Australian-based author has written the novels The Diamond Anchor (2009) and Gone (2011), both published by University of Queensland Press, and the poetry collection Treading Earth (2008). A collection of short stories, The Rest Is Weight, will be released this year. Ms Mills won the 2008 Marian Eldridge Award for Young Emerging Women Writers, the Pacific Region of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition in 2008-9, and the 2008 Northern Territory Literary Awards: Best Short Story. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Hecate, Overland, Heat, the Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, and New Australian Stories, and she is a regular contributor to New Matilda and Overland. During her residency until Friday 30 March, Ms Mills will be special guest at a writers’ workshop from 2pm on Saturday 24 March at the Booranga Writers’ Centre, building 410, McKeown Drive, CSU in Wagga Wagga and at a public reading at the Riverina Regional Library in Baylis Street in Wagga Wagga from 5pm on Wednesday 28 March.

Ms Maria Williams, the daughter of the late Wiradjuri Elder, Wongamar, also known as Pastor Cec Grant, will honour her father’s legacy at a public lecture in Canberra on Friday 23 March. The 2012 Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture  focuses on the interactions between Australian Indigenous cultures and Christianity, and the history of Indigenous Christian movements. In 2008, Charles Sturt University (CSU) established the annual Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture to recognise and celebrate the work of Pastor Grant, OAM. Ms Williams will present her lecture from 7pm at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (ACC&C) in Canberra. The annual Pastor Cec Grant Memorial Lecture is supported by CSU, the Wiradjuri Council of Elders, and the Wiradjuri Christian Development Ministries.

Science at Charles Sturt University (CSU) and its innovations in teaching and research will be on show to the Border community on Thursday 22 March in a presentation by and the Dean of CSU’s Faculty of Science, Professor Nick Klomp, who is also a renowned science broadcaster. “The Faculty of Science is one of the largest and most diverse science faculties in Australasia, with around 9 000 students and hundreds of staff in seven schools across six campuses. We teach and conduct research in a variety of science and health disciplines from veterinary science to dentistry, nursing to environmental studies, forensic biotechnology to wine science, agriculture to allied health. I will also speak about CSU’s bid for a medical school,” Professor Klomp said. Teachers, students, industry representatives, and the general public will receive information about courses leading to science careers, current and future research collaborations, and professional training in the University’s multi-million dollar research and training facilities and clinics, some of which are located in Albury-Wodonga.

Having raised more than $16 000 in the past two years, Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Orange hope to donate another large sum to the NSW Cancer Council on Saturday 10 March. This follows staff involvement in Relay for Life, an annual community event where teams participate in an overnight relay-style walk or run to raise funds for the NSW Cancer Council. Team coordinator and lecturer in anatomy and physiology in the School of Biomedical Sciences at CSU, Dr James Wickham, believes the commitment of University staff to the community plays a big part in their fundraising success. “We have a smaller number of staff taking part this year, but they’re just as enthusiastic as ever,” Dr Wickham says. “Charles Sturt University staff enjoy participating in community events and this is for a good cause, so we can always rely on our family and friends to help us donate money for cancer research.” To support the CSU team in Relay for Life click here.

A Japanese academic will visit Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst this week to discuss plans for a filmmaking project linking local high school students with Bathurst sister-city, Okhuma, in Japan. Associate Professor Jane Mills, a lecturer and researcher at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, will host the visit by Associate Professor Hirotoshi Yaginuma, a fine arts teacher from the Faculty of Education at Niigata University. They will collaborate on the project, and will discuss it with CSU staff in Bathurst and Wagga Wagga, via video-conference, on Wednesday 29 February. “Professor Yaginuma and I are planning a screen literacy research project involving teachers and students from Bathurst High School and from Bathurst’s sister city of Okhuma, who have been relocated to another city, away from the nearby tsunami-caused nuclear disaster zone at Fukushima last year,” Professor Mills said. “This project relates to research about the role of popular screen culture in student engagement levels, the capabilities of the camera on a smart phone for screen literacy learning, and the potential of the mobile phone camera for cultural participation and global citizenship.”