The onset of industrial action across the Russell Group and former 94 Group was bound to pique the interest of the right wing press- and true to form over the past week or so there has been considerable pick up of young conservatives’ petitions and Tab stories on students demanding “refunds” for lost lectures.
In recent years much of the national discussion has been about various exciting student engagement schemes – such as Students as Change Agents, Student Fellows Scheme and a whole host of other schemes.
The dominant press narrative surrounding this year’s NSS results centred on NUS’ boycott of the survey- which depending on your viewpoint was either a resounding success in disrupting a tool of neoliberalism, or as dangerous exercise that both revealed the lack of influence NUS has on its own membership, whilst robbing students of much evidence […]
My name is Steve Coole and I am the current NUS Wales Director. I have worked in the student movement for 13 years and was diagnosed with depression in 2016. The student movement is very dear to me, as are the wonderful people that have taught me so much. It’s shaped me and improved me […]
This excellent article from Chloe Donovan and former NUS VP UD Richard Brooks talks about Collective Impact Models and shares some of their evidence for the double benefit of youth social action. The #iwill campaign is a UK-wide movement that aims to make involvement in meaningful social action (e.g. fundraising, volunteering and campaigning) part of […]
In a JISC mail sent by Andy Morwood, CEO at St Mary’s SU, he raised the question around making membership of student groups free, for both accessibility and for building bigger and more engaged communities. As Andy says: “All the good stuff.” There are numerous arguments here against this around the financial sustainability, the token gesture to motivate commitment, […]
In this piece Rob Henderson, Student Living Manager at Nottingham SU urges us to avoid the trap of king that students love us and all the services we provide, with lessons for any of us with multiple campuses, faculties or identifiable communities. For around 100 years, Woolworths offered a range of services to all and […]
Jonathan Oliver I’d say more leadership training, and conflict resolution skills would be a great help. Jo Walters Expectation management but also not trampling on their dreams (you are not always right). Well-being. Understand that their role is different to yours, they are not another member of staff Jonathan Oliver I agree with well being, myself and two […]
Michael Gale, Head of Engagement at Birmingham City University Students’ Union (BCUSU) recently presented a session at Membership Services Conference on their new Scrutiny Group and this article summaries that session. Background A couple of years ago we realised that our traditional student council format wasn’t working, we had to drag students into the meetings […]
In this fascinating piece for ACUI’s Bulletin, the authors examine the notion of the college (student) union (building) as a “Third Place” In their recent article in the journal Leisure Sciences, Felice Yuen and Amanda Johnson reconsider Ray Oldenburg’s conceptualization of “third places.” Since Oldenburg’s book The Great Good Place was published in 1999, the college union has […]
