Category Archives: Opinion

I am not advocating that all our decisions should be made in pugilistic exchanges of 2 minute speeches in a general meeting

In this piece Neil Mackenzie, Head of Advice & Representation at Sheffield Students’​ Union, argues that the automatic acceptance of ‘resilience’ as an agenda may work against students’ interests in the long term. Over the past few years we’ve all heard an emergent narrative about ‘Snowflakes’. The argument goes this generation- especially students, are so […]

If by the end of the election students haven’t been discussing issues, their interests and the way their interests have to be negotiated with others collectively, what was the point?

In students’ unions, General Meetings and Union Councils have been the staple of policy making for decades; and before mass electronic communication became common place, these meetings were the easiest way of gathering opinion, debating topics, and voting on policies. In this piece a former MMU sabb argues that Q26 and technology may mean that […]

Here NUS Development Consultant and Governance Expert Al Powell explains why he thinks that career staff in students’ unions should be charity trustees. Trusteeship and governance are talked about a lot in the student movement- and for all the right reasons. Students’ unions set an excellent example of how to run charities, but we don’t […]

UUK has launched work from its taskforce on Sexual Harassment and Assault, and the new guidance on a code of practice for disciplinary processes may be needed and welcomed with the changes in legislation over the last twenty years. Just as interesting is the explicit mention in the materials of students as ‘customers’ and the […]