Charles Sturt’s impactful Wiradjuri language course wins prestigious national award

Celebrating and preserving the Wiradjuri language and culture are central to Charles Sturt University’s mission of yindyamarra winhanganha, which is a Wiradjuri phrase meaning ‘the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in’.

Central to this ethos is our Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage, the only university course of its kind in Australia. The course aims to help both Wiradjuri and non-Wiradjuri people preserve language and culture and provides skills in using and sharing traditional knowledge of the Wiradjuri language in community and education settings.

In 2021, our teaching staff for the course, highly respected Wiradjuri elder Uncle Dr Stan Grant Snr, AM and Professor Susan Green, were acknowledged with a Patji-Dawes Group Award. The Patji-Dawes Language Teaching Awards are administered by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. The award honours outstanding achievements in teaching languages other than English in Australia.

Uncle Stan Grant Snr and Professor Susan Green were nominated by student and Wiradjuri woman, Ms Elaine Lomas, who described both teachers as ‘inspiring’. “They have been renewed by the power of Wiradjuri language to change how you see yourself, and the world around you. I am now oriented by a Wiradjuri compass. My life is being transformed and healed (bagarayban) through my language,” said Ms Lomas of the course and its teachers.