STUDENT UNIONS
Students’ unions are often the social centre of a university, not least because SUs usually run at least one, if not all, the student bars, as well as a veritable panoply of other facilities, services and amenities.
Sometimes the students’ union is little more than a social club, but sometimes unions meet almost all the daily needs of students (often the students don’t realise how many). In part, it depends on the students who run it.
These students who actually run the students’ unions on a day-to-day basis are elected to do so by other students.
Imagine that: up and down the country there are multi-million pound businesses, employing sometimes over a hundred staff, all run by students who are usually only a couple of years out of school. You want CV points? Try that on for size.
Most student entertainments — the facilities and the events — are run by students themselves.
That doesn’t mean there’s little more than parties and amateur band nights (although, sadly, at some universities and colleges that’s true). From gigs by the biggest bands to club nights that make Ibiza look limp, students run their own entertainments — collectively.
Students’ unions (or SUs to those who like acronyms) are the organisations that students form as a group to lay on these goodies — everything from cafés to cabaret, bars to buses home afterwards. That doesn’t mean that students necessarily do all the jobs themselves but that, collectively, an organisation they run can employ professionals to do it for them.
Every university in the country has a students’ union; some are more active than uranium and others are less lively than lettuce.
An active union is like a shot in the arm for the students’ social scene, but every union has different priorities. The good thing is that it’s the students themselves, because they run the union, who decide those priorities. It’s all very democratic blah, blah, blah, but for most students, what’s important is that the job gets done.
As a rule, students are automatically members of the union from day one as a student. They get a nice shiny card to prove it - usually with your gorgeous face on it...and proving you exist at that uni can be very useful because students get discounts on everything from retail shops to Spotify, from iPads to train tickets...and from smartphone contracts to cinema tickets.
When people talk about the students’ union, or often simply ‘The Union’, they’re referring not only to the organisation, but also to the building or centre from which it runs its services. It is run for students, by students, meaning if you've needs wider than being entertained, like perhaps needing someone to talk to due to a mental health issue or a life circumstance that has triggered it: those people care and are there to support you and point you in the direction of professionals.
For example, a typical SU will house watering holes, performance spaces, offices, but also some unexpected student amenities. As well as the aforementioned mental health and student wellbeing support, the list can be quite impressive...
Take for example, the SU building at Birmingham Uni (not the best equipped in the country, but one helluva way from the worst) which has, among other things: three bars, a couple of cafeterias, a sandwich bar, mini-supermarket, student advice centre, student travel agency, photo shop, box office for SU gigs, media centre and free WIFI, a Waterstones bookshop, an opticians, a hairdressers, greengrocers, tech shop, Endsleigh Insurance office, car and minibus hire, meeting rooms, a debating chamber, a customised nightclub venue, HSBC, Halifax and Co-op banks, a juke box, and finally...vending and games machines.
Go on face it...to deny your SU would be to deny yourself crucial support for the entire spectrum of your student lifestyle. It also means it should be a crucial element of your research into deciding which university to apply to. On an open day, try and meet the course tutors, see where you'd be studying...then head to the SU for a good nosy.
Multi-site universities usually need union facilities on more than one site and sometimes that means that services on some or all of the sites suffer.
The union is often the place that students go during the day for coffee and a chat or a bite to eat and where they come back to at night for events or just to hang out in the bar.
But not everywhere, though. As we said, some SUs are higher profile than others.
Another word of warning: at some universities, the students’ union set-up is weird as woodlice. Some have more than one union in competition with each other. Glasgow University has five separate unions: two competing on ents and services, another one dealing with sports, another to represent students and one that’s just for postgrads.
At some places the students’ union is called the Students’ Guild, the Students’ Association, the Students’ Representative Council, even the Junior Common Room for chrissakes (what’s that about?), but basically they’re all pretty similar.
What’s important is the set-up and the level of activity, as they can have a knock-on effect on how effectively the SU operates, for better or worse.
If you get poor service from your students’ union and the gap isn’t filled by university-run amenities, the college (in a collegiate university), or local facilities (if you can afford them), then life holds fewer opportunities for students who want more than just a degree from their time at university.
Sometimes the students’ union is little more than a social club, but sometimes unions meet almost all the daily needs of students (often the students don’t realise how many). In part, it depends on the students who run it.
These students who actually run the students’ unions on a day-to-day basis are elected to do so by other students.
Imagine that: up and down the country there are multi-million pound businesses, employing sometimes over a hundred staff, all run by students who are usually only a couple of years out of school. You want CV points? Try that on for size.
Most student entertainments — the facilities and the events — are run by students themselves.
That doesn’t mean there’s little more than parties and amateur band nights (although, sadly, at some universities and colleges that’s true). From gigs by the biggest bands to club nights that make Ibiza look limp, students run their own entertainments — collectively.
Students’ unions (or SUs to those who like acronyms) are the organisations that students form as a group to lay on these goodies — everything from cafés to cabaret, bars to buses home afterwards. That doesn’t mean that students necessarily do all the jobs themselves but that, collectively, an organisation they run can employ professionals to do it for them.
Every university in the country has a students’ union; some are more active than uranium and others are less lively than lettuce.
An active union is like a shot in the arm for the students’ social scene, but every union has different priorities. The good thing is that it’s the students themselves, because they run the union, who decide those priorities. It’s all very democratic blah, blah, blah, but for most students, what’s important is that the job gets done.
As a rule, students are automatically members of the union from day one as a student. They get a nice shiny card to prove it - usually with your gorgeous face on it...and proving you exist at that uni can be very useful because students get discounts on everything from retail shops to Spotify, from iPads to train tickets...and from smartphone contracts to cinema tickets.
When people talk about the students’ union, or often simply ‘The Union’, they’re referring not only to the organisation, but also to the building or centre from which it runs its services. It is run for students, by students, meaning if you've needs wider than being entertained, like perhaps needing someone to talk to due to a mental health issue or a life circumstance that has triggered it: those people care and are there to support you and point you in the direction of professionals.
For example, a typical SU will house watering holes, performance spaces, offices, but also some unexpected student amenities. As well as the aforementioned mental health and student wellbeing support, the list can be quite impressive...
Take for example, the SU building at Birmingham Uni (not the best equipped in the country, but one helluva way from the worst) which has, among other things: three bars, a couple of cafeterias, a sandwich bar, mini-supermarket, student advice centre, student travel agency, photo shop, box office for SU gigs, media centre and free WIFI, a Waterstones bookshop, an opticians, a hairdressers, greengrocers, tech shop, Endsleigh Insurance office, car and minibus hire, meeting rooms, a debating chamber, a customised nightclub venue, HSBC, Halifax and Co-op banks, a juke box, and finally...vending and games machines.
Go on face it...to deny your SU would be to deny yourself crucial support for the entire spectrum of your student lifestyle. It also means it should be a crucial element of your research into deciding which university to apply to. On an open day, try and meet the course tutors, see where you'd be studying...then head to the SU for a good nosy.
Multi-site universities usually need union facilities on more than one site and sometimes that means that services on some or all of the sites suffer.
The union is often the place that students go during the day for coffee and a chat or a bite to eat and where they come back to at night for events or just to hang out in the bar.
But not everywhere, though. As we said, some SUs are higher profile than others.
Another word of warning: at some universities, the students’ union set-up is weird as woodlice. Some have more than one union in competition with each other. Glasgow University has five separate unions: two competing on ents and services, another one dealing with sports, another to represent students and one that’s just for postgrads.
At some places the students’ union is called the Students’ Guild, the Students’ Association, the Students’ Representative Council, even the Junior Common Room for chrissakes (what’s that about?), but basically they’re all pretty similar.
What’s important is the set-up and the level of activity, as they can have a knock-on effect on how effectively the SU operates, for better or worse.
If you get poor service from your students’ union and the gap isn’t filled by university-run amenities, the college (in a collegiate university), or local facilities (if you can afford them), then life holds fewer opportunities for students who want more than just a degree from their time at university.
STUDENT REPRESENTATION
This matter of being run by students for students is part of students’ unions’ other main role — often just as important as providing services, indeed at some universities, even more so.
SUs are the representative voice of the students. In theory, at least — how representative they are in practice is another thing that varies from university to university.
Apart from electing the students to run the show, SUs try to get their student members to vote in ballots and at meetings on all sorts of matters — everything from political campaigns to whether to boycott Smarties from the union shop.
SUs have more elections than a man on Viagra in a Chinese takeaway, but at many the turn-out is so low they almost make Florida look democratic. But they (almost) all have complex proportional representation voting systems and some could teach the Government a thing or two about accountability.
At most universities, a few elected students are allowed to give up their studies for a year (often they take office just after finishing their degree) and are therefore called sabbaticals or ‘sabbs’. The sabbaticals are even paid to do their jobs (never more than a few thousand — much lower wages than any of the non-student staff).
Unions also have plenty of unpaid student officers who don’t get the year off, but who do it out of commitment, ambition or just for fun.
Traditionally, these elected jobs are political — like a students’ mini government — but increasingly, at many universities, students don’t even think of standing for election on a political party ticket. More often it’s a bring-a-bottle party ticket.
Political or not, as well as ultimately running the commercial business of the union, the officers (the sabbs especially) are on university committees voicing the opinions of the student body to the authorities on all manner of subjects. Anything from library opening hours to the level of rent in student housing, from giving honorary degrees to dodgy former dictators (such as Baroness Thatcher), to taking part in the job interviews when the university needs to appoint a new vice-chancellor.
The amount of say that students get in the running of their university varies from place to place and depends not only on whether the SU officers are involved in such committees, but on how seriously their views are taken.
Meanwhile, SUs represent students in other ways — to the outside world through campaigns and the media (usually only local papers and radio are interested) and to students up and down the country through the National Union of Students (NUS).
SUs are the representative voice of the students. In theory, at least — how representative they are in practice is another thing that varies from university to university.
Apart from electing the students to run the show, SUs try to get their student members to vote in ballots and at meetings on all sorts of matters — everything from political campaigns to whether to boycott Smarties from the union shop.
SUs have more elections than a man on Viagra in a Chinese takeaway, but at many the turn-out is so low they almost make Florida look democratic. But they (almost) all have complex proportional representation voting systems and some could teach the Government a thing or two about accountability.
At most universities, a few elected students are allowed to give up their studies for a year (often they take office just after finishing their degree) and are therefore called sabbaticals or ‘sabbs’. The sabbaticals are even paid to do their jobs (never more than a few thousand — much lower wages than any of the non-student staff).
Unions also have plenty of unpaid student officers who don’t get the year off, but who do it out of commitment, ambition or just for fun.
Traditionally, these elected jobs are political — like a students’ mini government — but increasingly, at many universities, students don’t even think of standing for election on a political party ticket. More often it’s a bring-a-bottle party ticket.
Political or not, as well as ultimately running the commercial business of the union, the officers (the sabbs especially) are on university committees voicing the opinions of the student body to the authorities on all manner of subjects. Anything from library opening hours to the level of rent in student housing, from giving honorary degrees to dodgy former dictators (such as Baroness Thatcher), to taking part in the job interviews when the university needs to appoint a new vice-chancellor.
The amount of say that students get in the running of their university varies from place to place and depends not only on whether the SU officers are involved in such committees, but on how seriously their views are taken.
Meanwhile, SUs represent students in other ways — to the outside world through campaigns and the media (usually only local papers and radio are interested) and to students up and down the country through the National Union of Students (NUS).
NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS (NUS)
NUS is like the union of students’ unions. Just like individual students’ unions, it has a services arm (through which is organised a lot of the collective buying that provides cheap beer) and a representative role.
Every year there are huge NUS conferences which students from universities all over the country are elected to attend and where they vote on future campaigns.
Like students’ unions, NUS is also run by sabbatical students and they also get to go to a lot of dull committee meetings — only theirs tend to be with Government ministers rather than university bureaucrats.
NUS also organises many of the student demonstrations that march through the streets waving placards, chanting slogans and being ignored by almost everyone. Which is why they don’t do that so often any more.
Individual students don’t join NUS — in fact, most of the time, they don’t even have to join their own university’s students’ union, because they’re automatically members. Instead, it’s the students’ unions that join (or affiliate to) NUS.
Not every SU is affiliated and that can either mean poorer services for students or, quite often, it means theirs were so good in the first place that there was no further benefit in being a member of the national organisation. (Better check which, though.)
Every year there are huge NUS conferences which students from universities all over the country are elected to attend and where they vote on future campaigns.
Like students’ unions, NUS is also run by sabbatical students and they also get to go to a lot of dull committee meetings — only theirs tend to be with Government ministers rather than university bureaucrats.
NUS also organises many of the student demonstrations that march through the streets waving placards, chanting slogans and being ignored by almost everyone. Which is why they don’t do that so often any more.
Individual students don’t join NUS — in fact, most of the time, they don’t even have to join their own university’s students’ union, because they’re automatically members. Instead, it’s the students’ unions that join (or affiliate to) NUS.
Not every SU is affiliated and that can either mean poorer services for students or, quite often, it means theirs were so good in the first place that there was no further benefit in being a member of the national organisation. (Better check which, though.)
politics
Students interested in politics (or often in journalism) — whether as a career or just as a slightly disturbing obsession — should get along to the first students’ union meeting they can.
Many leading politicos and pundits started off as student ‘hacks’ (as anyone actively involved in SU politics is known). Stephen Twigg MP, who beat Michael Portillo in the 1997 election and who is now an education minister, was once NUS President, as were at least four other MPs including, most senior of them all, ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Indeed, carefully inspect the CVs of many people in the public eye and a sordid history in student hackery will be revealed.
Student politics used to lean heavily to the left. NUS was notable for a constant struggle between the centre left and the far left.
That has all changed. The NUS President is no longer a Labour Party candidate (although she is a left-winger) and most sabbaticals at most universities are independent. Opinions on particular issues tend to count more than colours on rosettes. And, as often as not, the issues that count are the price of beer at the student bar.
However, there are still universities where the students’ union and indeed the whole student body swing to the left — or in a couple of cases, to the right.
Many leading politicos and pundits started off as student ‘hacks’ (as anyone actively involved in SU politics is known). Stephen Twigg MP, who beat Michael Portillo in the 1997 election and who is now an education minister, was once NUS President, as were at least four other MPs including, most senior of them all, ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Indeed, carefully inspect the CVs of many people in the public eye and a sordid history in student hackery will be revealed.
Student politics used to lean heavily to the left. NUS was notable for a constant struggle between the centre left and the far left.
That has all changed. The NUS President is no longer a Labour Party candidate (although she is a left-winger) and most sabbaticals at most universities are independent. Opinions on particular issues tend to count more than colours on rosettes. And, as often as not, the issues that count are the price of beer at the student bar.
However, there are still universities where the students’ union and indeed the whole student body swing to the left — or in a couple of cases, to the right.
bars and pubs
The bar, or more probably, the many bars are usually the gravitational centres of the university — which explains why so many people are lying on the floor. (A physics gag — alright, forget it.)
Contrary to popular belief, beer in student bars is NOT subsidised. However, it is cheap. Sometimes it’s as little as a £1.40 a pint — even cheaper if there’s a promo. Other drinks are up to a third cheaper than local pubs too.
‘How do they manage it?’ we hear you gasp thirstily. The answer lies in the fact that, after the country’s largest pub and hotel chain, students collectively are the UK’s second largest consumers of beer. The fact that they buy collectively means they get competitive prices and, because most student bars are run by the students’ unions, they don’t keep the prices high just to rack up the profits. Pretty much the same applies to anything you buy from the SU — from pencils to Polos — although the savings are rarely as big as on booze.
Some bars are better than others and have longer opening hours. Many host ents ranging from gigs to karaoke. In style they vary from nightmare airport lounges to crypt-like cellars, from cool palaces of kitsch to huge venue-only thirst quenchers. Some SUs even own their own pubs.
Of course, if you don’t live near the university, the bars may be out of reach. In which case, you’re going to be reliant on local fare — whatever that may be. This is when town/gown relations really come to a head — when students try to find a cheap and friendly watering hole.
Contrary to popular belief, beer in student bars is NOT subsidised. However, it is cheap. Sometimes it’s as little as a £1.40 a pint — even cheaper if there’s a promo. Other drinks are up to a third cheaper than local pubs too.
‘How do they manage it?’ we hear you gasp thirstily. The answer lies in the fact that, after the country’s largest pub and hotel chain, students collectively are the UK’s second largest consumers of beer. The fact that they buy collectively means they get competitive prices and, because most student bars are run by the students’ unions, they don’t keep the prices high just to rack up the profits. Pretty much the same applies to anything you buy from the SU — from pencils to Polos — although the savings are rarely as big as on booze.
Some bars are better than others and have longer opening hours. Many host ents ranging from gigs to karaoke. In style they vary from nightmare airport lounges to crypt-like cellars, from cool palaces of kitsch to huge venue-only thirst quenchers. Some SUs even own their own pubs.
Of course, if you don’t live near the university, the bars may be out of reach. In which case, you’re going to be reliant on local fare — whatever that may be. This is when town/gown relations really come to a head — when students try to find a cheap and friendly watering hole.