News edition for 26 July 2026. Added to Nungya on 22 October 2026 as part of our retrospective news archive. Reporting reflects information available by the edition date.

University graduation is often pictured as a single person crossing a stage. A recent celebration at the University of Queensland widened that picture to include the people who helped make the milestone possible.

UQ reported on 7 July that 16 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander graduands were honoured at its 2026 mid-year Sashing Ceremony. Held on 3 July at the St Lucia campus, it was the university’s largest mid-year ceremony of its kind. Families, friends, Elders, community members and staff joined the celebration.

Student speaker Callagan Williams, a descendant of Mununjali, Kombumerri and Rotuman peoples, reflected on the relationships that sustained his studies. His account also connected education with language: he spoke about becoming the first person in his family line in more than three generations to speak full sentences in his ancestral language.

The ceremony offers a useful way to think about achievement. A degree records years of academic work, while a gathering like this makes room for family encouragement, mentoring and cultural connection to be recognised publicly. Those contributions belong in the graduation story too.

Read UQ’s account of the ceremony and its community connections.