It’s not child’s play anymore—the interactive entertainment industry grossed more than $50 billion worldwide in 2005 and in Australia topped $1 billion for the first time.

“Bond’s new Bachelor of Computer Games, which starts next semester, is so much more than a straight multimedia degree,” says Associate Prof. Jeff Brand, who devised the degree with Assistant Prof. Scott Knight. Jeff is director of Bond’s Centre for New Media Research and Education.

Criminology Masters graduate in 2000 Karen Ward has started the Love Shack for abandoned orphan children in Nairobi, Kenya.

Karen is from the United Kingdom, where she worked as a forensic nurse. Then she completed a Masters of Criminology here.

Karen explains: “Love Shack aims to create a holistic, loving, self-sustaining and secure environment for sick, homeless and abandoned children and vulnerable adults to live as a family.

”In 2001 I travelled through Kenya on my return to the UK from Bond. As I travelled through Nairrobi I was shocked to see children as young as three begging on the streets, pre-teen prostitutes and young boys escaping their broken lives by glue-sniffing.

“It was heartbreaking. In 2003 a web search led me to a children’s charity in Kenya. I had a wonderful year as teacher and housemother to 42 destitute and orphaned teenage girls. I now rent a small house in a slum and named it the Love Shack.

“I’m trying to build a boarding school to provide holistic care to these vulnerable children.”

Congratulations to our PhD student in Journalism, Naomi Busst, who has won the Journalism Education Association award for early career researchers.

One of the most amazing and unexpected archaeological finds ever made in Australia has turned up among the wind-blown sand dunes of Willandra Lakes in western New South Wales.

More than 450 footprints of men, women and children depict life in the area 20,000 years ago.

Congratulations to Mariko Saito (Teaching Fellow – Languages) for being awarded the trimesterly Bond University Teaching Excellence Award by the Bond Student Council.

Remember Nidhi Dutt who graduated just over a year ago in Journalism and International Relations?

Prof. Paul Wilson and Criminology Assistant Professor Robyn Lincoln addressed 30 judges at a Darwin conference last month put on by the National Judicial College of Australia. The topic: “Can you tell if people are lying?”

In recognition of his research productivity, Professor of Psychology Greg Boyle has been invited on to the editorial board of the international journal Personality and Individual Differences (PAID).

Genevieve Edmond (O’Reilly) had a seven-pound baby girl on Wednesday, September 13. Both are well – she needed no drugs, and had only two hours of labour! The baby's name is Grace Genevieve O'Reilly.

BUASA AGM SET FOR FRIDAY OCTOBER 13

There will be an annual general meeting of the Bond University Academic Staff association (BUASA) at 12 noon in Case Study Room 2 on Friday October 13.

The agenda includes the election of officers for the next 12 months.