Eminent academic and leading promoter of regional Australia, Professor Henry Nowik, will be recognised for his services to regional business when Charles Sturt University (CSU) names a major building on its Albury-Wodonga Campus in his honour. CSU Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Andrew Vann will be on hand to name the Nowik Learning Commons from 12noon on Thursday 13 September. The learning commons includes the library, extensive large and small meeting spaces, computer rooms and a kitchenette, most of which are open 24 hours a day, seven days per week to CSU students and staff. “Professor Nowik has a remarkable set of life experiences drawn from a long and rich life, well-lived. He has had a particular interest in the development of the Albury-Wodonga Campus to meet the needs of this growing regional hub, and Charles Sturt University honours Professor Nowik as a champion of regional development, a founding father of modern Wodonga, and as a visionary, philanthropist and benefactor,” Professor Vann said.

A senior educator who recently won a prestigious Churchill Scholarship to investigate the world-class Finnish education system will address middle school teaching students from Charles Sturt University (CSU) on Tuesday 18 September. Ms Margaret Mulcahy, a Principal Education Officer with the NSW Department of Education and Communities, will address how parents and carers can assist in schooling, which complements her interests in learning and thinking by inquiry, curriculum integration, and student-centred learning. She is joined by a senior teacher educator from the University of Lapland in Finland, Dr Tuija Turunen, a research fellow with CSU’s School of Education, who will provide a comparison of how parents work with schools in Finland. She will also address how people become teachers in the Scandinavian country and why most school leavers prefer teaching over law or medicine. Visit coordinator and CSU education lecturer, Dr Liisa Uusimaki, said bringing the two educators from different parts of the world together to share their knowledge with CSU middle school teaching students demonstrates University’s commitment to advancing teacher education for the sake of Australian children.

Primary school pupils from Trinity Anglican College at Thurgoona are exploring migrant experiences and preparing to build their own heritage collections through a project run by Lysa Dealtry, an Early Childhood education Honours student from Charles Sturt University. Ms Dealtry will lead a field trip to the Bonegilla Migrant Museum at the Albury Regional Museum on Monday (27 November). An important part of the project is the “explore-a-box”, which contains items from the Bonegilla Collection. Ms Dealtry, a descendant of migrant parents and grandparents, is conducting her Honours research project on the teaching and learning that takes place in the classroom. Earlier this year, she was awarded a $5 000 fellowship from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the NSW Migration Heritage Centre to develop a mobile display to raise community awareness of migrants and their heritage and identity. The “explore-a-box” resource will be available for use by local school teachers in 2007.

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement, activists are making strategic use of digital communication networks to encourage social change, according to Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Mr Jake Wallis. Mr Wallis from the School of Information Studies will present a seminar at CSU in Wagga Wagga on Wednesday 5 September, exploring how civil society uses the web and the impact it can have on democratic participation and politics.  “The internet, social media and mobile phones allow messages of protest to spread at high speeds,” Mr Wallis said. “New media can help activist groups to create a hard-hitting emotional narrative around social issues, which can generate support across regional, national and international networks.”  The seminar will also be streamed to the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås in Sweden.

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic who provided expert evidence at a murder trial of 25 defendants in South Africa in 1989, will attend a local screening on Thursday 13 September of A Common Purpose, the award-winning feature-length documentary about the trial. Associate Professor Graham Tyson, lecturer and researcher at the CSU School of Psychology in Bathurst, was one of the defence team’s expert witnesses in the trial in which 25 people were found guilty of the murder of one person. “In South Africa at that time, if a person was found guilty of murder, they automatically faced the death penalty, unless extenuation could be proved,” Professor Tyson said. “These 25 people faced the death sentence. I had given evidence in a number of such trials on the psychological factors that could influence people in crowds and which could reduce their ability to foresee the consequences of their behaviour. That evidence had been accepted as grounds for extenuation in an earlier trial, and therefore I was asked to testify in this case. Organising the defence case was a huge undertaking, and the film shows what a remarkable job defence lawyer Ms Andrea Durbach did. It is a very moving film and, when I saw it, it raised a lot of old emotions in me.”

Inspired by the 2012 Central West RoboCup Junior Challenge at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in June, 20 senior students from St Stanislaus College in Bathurst will visit the University on Tuesday 4 September to explore how robots are developed and used in research and industry. RoboCup coordinator, Mr Allen Benter, a researcher and PhD student at the CSU Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS) in Bathurst, said, “The Stannies students were so engaged by the competition they asked whether they could return at a later date to see how we develop robots for specific purposes. It’s great that the students are so motivated to learn more about the important and rapidly developing field of robotics. We will show and demonstrate research robots, quadcopters and surface imaging technology.”

A senior Nepali forester will discuss his ideas on who owns the forests of Asia and the implications of this ownership when he visits Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga this week. Dr Ganga Dahal, who is the Asian facilitator for the Rights and Resources Initiative in Bangkok, Thailand, is visiting the University’s School of Environmental Sciences to meet with CSU staff and research students, as well as presenting a public seminar titled Who controls the forests? Exploring community forestry in Asia. Dr Dahal said control and ownership of local forests is at the core of community forestry as it seeks to enhance local livelihoods. “Community forestry is widely promoted throughout Asia, however local communities often have insecure tenure over their traditional forests,” said Dr Dahal, who will explore the current status and changes in forest tenure in Asia, and the implications for community forestry at this seminar. Visit coordinator at CSU, Dr Digby Race, believes international visitors are important for the research and teaching programs of institutions such as CSU. “Having visitors like Dr Dahal is vital for exchanging experiences and ideas. It helps connect our local knowledge to global issues, and for our solutions to be informed by international lessons,” Dr Race said.

An innovative Albury-based health research charity hopes to reach a wider international audience thanks to assistance from two Charles Sturt University (CSU) students. The Power Thinking Health Council website aims to help people heal themselves through their own mental health and wellbeing. CSU information technology students Dan Francisco and Ben Van Kesteren developed a monitoring and reporting tool that compares a visitor’s daily moods, feelings and emotions with their personal general health. Power Thinking Health Council president Theo Richter said the online tool “will provide our website readers with immediate feedback on how their current emotional state might be affecting their health, which is particularly important for living with such chronic diseases as cancer”. The students developed the site and associated survey and online monitor as part of their final year project for their CSU information technology degrees.

The public lecture at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst on Wednesday 5 September by leading Australian medical expert, Emeritus Professor John Dwyer, AO, has received a boost with the release of a report last week by the Senate’s Community Affairs References Committee. The University made a written submission to the Committee, and Professor Dwyer, and the Vice-Chancellor and President of CSU, Professor Andrew Vann, made submissions in person at a public hearing in Albury on Tuesday 5 June. Professor Vann has also responded to the report. Mr Col Sharp, Head of CSU in Bathurst, said, “Professor Dwyer is a leading advocate for structural reform of Australia’s health care delivery system, and he argues that current health outcomes for rural Australians are not acceptable. His public lecture will examine the rationale for and progress with CSU’s bid to establish a new rural medical school to boost the supply of ‘doctors for the bush’, and Professor Dwyer will also reflect on the broad endorsement of the University’s proposed approach to rural medical education in the Senate Committee report.” The Dental Clinic and the new Interdisciplinary Clinical Simulation Centre for nursing and paramedic students at CSU in Bathurst will be open for inspection by the public in the hour prior to the lecture.