ANU backtracks on graduation changes day after adverse publicity

The ANU has changed its arrangement for graduation ceremonies one day after The Canberra Times publicised the anger of international students who said they and their families would have to miss the important ceremony.

In the past, there have been two graduation ceremonies a year - one in July and the other in December - making it easy for students to attend these important milestone in their lives.

But in June, the ANU decided that the two would be cut to one - and that one ceremony held in April next year. It said the change was to "enhance the student and staff experience".

But on Monday, The Canberra Times reported how the change meant that many international students wouldn't be able to attend because their visas had expired by then.

A day later, the ANU changed the arrangements again.

An ANU student poses with her parents on her graduation day on July 10, 2024. Picture by Elesa Kurtz

After the adverse publicity, it said there would still be only one graduation ceremony a year - but that this would now be in the week from February 3.

This second change has not been welcomed. ANU Students' Association international officer Rishika Agrawal said that the new arrangement would still be "heavily inconvenient".

It was true, she said, that some student visas would not have expired by the week of February 3 but people who graduated back in July would still not be able to wait in Australia for six months for the ceremony.

Nor, she felt, would many Australian students, particularly those from interstate who were in jobs by then.

On top of that, many families had already booked flights to come to witness their loved one's graduation this coming December.

"There are a lot of students who are the first in their family to graduate," Ms Agrawal said. Some had paid $200,000 to get to a ceremony which would now not happen.

The ANU sought to explain the second change by saying on its website that it had "received feedback on the proposed changes from over 120 members of the ANU community".

ANUSA international officer Rishika Agrawal said students would still be "heavily inconvenienced". Pictures by Elesa Kurtz

This feedback, it said, "included a number of key themes:

• The difficulty for students and/or their families to travel to Canberra in March/April to attend their graduation ceremony;
• The impact on international students, including that most international student visas would have expired by the March/April graduation ceremonies and students would need to apply and pay for a new visa in order to attend their graduation ceremony; and
• Some students and/or their families had already made arrangements to travel to Canberra in December 2024 to attend their graduation ceremony."