Riana’s Amazing Achievement
One of the most distinguished awards breaks, exercising, eating healthy and
spending time with family and friends.
to be presented to an undergraduate
student at UNSW is the University
Medal. This award reflects
outstanding academic performance
and is awarded to the highest
achieving student in each faculty/
school. Earlier this year, it was
announced that the 2015 University
Medal in Theatre and Performance
Studies was awarded to Nura Gili
student Riana Tatana.
Riana is a Bundjalung and Maori woman from
the Northern Rivers area of NSW and Tai
Tokerau, New Zealand, who grew up in
Lismore, NSW. She completed her Bachelor
of Arts majoring in Theatre and Performance
Studies and minoring in English Literature in
2014. In 2015 she went on to complete her
Honors in Theatre and Performance Studies
creating a performance called Monday’s Child
which was aimed at interrogating the
essentialising constructions of Aboriginality.
It was this project, along with her subsequent
thesis, investigating the personal, theatrical,
theoretical and creative process of Monday’s
Child, that won her this prestigious award.
“I was never really the most
outstanding or gifted student in
high school, so it really just goes to
show that if you work hard, put in
the effort and stay focused and
determined, you can achieve
anything you put your mind to.”
high-income families that currently sits at 3
years. They place graduates without teaching
degrees in socioeconomically disadvantaged
schools to teach for at least two years whilst
completing their Masters of Teaching online.
Riana says the experience is extremely
rewarding, crazy and incredibly enriching:
“I am learning more from my students
than they could ever learn from me.” On behalf of the staff and students at Nura
Riana says that receiving an award for such a
personal project that she dedicated so much
time and effort towards, was an extremely
incredible feeling. She believes it also
recognises the potential of all young Indigenous
students to succeed if given the opportunity to
do so. Additionally, Riana feels as though this
award stands as testimony to the ongoing and
consistent support she received from the staff
and students at Nura Gili throughout her degree.
After reading the email that told her she had
been awarded the medal, Riana was in such
disbelief that she found herself googling what
the award was in fear that she had read the
email wrong. After the shock had dwindled
and she had come to terms with it, she called
her family to let them know, but they are yet to
celebrate as Riana has moved away to teach in
regional Victoria.
But it was no easy ride. In her first semester of
Honours, Riana was holding herself to
extremely high expectations and standards,
which she says were so unattainable that her
health started to suffer. Thankfully, she had an
amazing support system to help get her
through this. Her support system made her
realise that she was not being kind enough to
herself and that self-care was much more important. She says that whilst setting goals and
high-expectations for yourself is great, you can
easily burn out if you don’t find a balance
between study and other things like taking
Riana is currently teaching as part of the Teach
for Australia program, which is a not-for-profit
organisation and social movement aiming to
address Australia’s problem of educational
disadvantage. The program hopes to close
the achievement gap between students from
low-income families and students from
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Gili, we would like to express our
congratulations to Riana on such an
amazing achievement.