Central Queensland University will recognise the work local businesses are doing in the community through the Community Contribution Award at this year's Rockhampton Regional Development & Ergon Energy Business Excellence Awards.

According to CQU's Director of Development and Graduate Relations Suzi Blair, as sponsors of the category CQU hopes not only to recognise the work already being done by businesses in Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast, but also to encourage others to become more involved in the community.

Dr Jackie Huggins AM, one of only two women on the Prime Minister's 2020 Summit Steering Committee, and co-chair of the 2020 Summit's Indigenous Affairs Panel, will lend her passion and expertise to the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research's 5^th annual Indigenous Family Violence Prevention Forum to be held in May.

Dr Huggins is an ardent supporter of the Centre and has been a member of its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Reference Group for 5 years.

Mother and son graduates Madelina (Maddy) and Michael Agius were friendly rivals during their studies but still helped each other out during study group sessions around their kitchen table.

And things could have been even more competitive as Michael's sister Jillian was at one point sharing classes with both her mother and brother before taking a year off for a travel traineeship.

CQU Performing Arts graduate Andrea Shine is in the cast of 6 singers for a lavish new production called OperaMania, due to open on April 19 at Johannesburg's Nelson Mandela Theatre.

The show is billed as a rival for Cirque de Soleil in terms of production values and features arias from Carmen, La Traviata, La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro and many more.

CQU staff and students recently (April 4) attended an on-site wasterwater seminar and demonstration at Maslin Beach - Australia's first legal nude beach - in South Australia.

But it was all eyes on the trench seminar and 'real' evapo-transpiration-absorption system installation associated with a public toilet block at the beach.

Two Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music graduates are the driving force behind an innovative vocal program in Tasmania.

Juliane Di Sisto and Sara -Jane Neep, both graduates of the Bachelor of Jazz Studies program, are coordinating an exciting new music program titled Voice in Schools through Newstead College in Launceston.