Middlesex University Students' Union
"Since starting at Middlesex in April, it is very clear to me that the focus here on supporting students through their academic studies is incredibly powerful. In other students’ unions I have worked with education can often be seen as responsibility of just one person – seeing the education officer as reflective of the needs and issues of the entire student body."
"What we have here are four officers from four very different faculties representing a broader range of academic interests. Students are at university to learn, and here at Middlesex to get a job when they graduate. Being able to reflect that drive and mission through all of our activities relies on having effective and reflective representation of the academic experience. We have more opportunities to interact with teaching throughout the university, we have the ability to reflect the variances and specific needs of students and departments across the broad range of Schools here at the institution."
"Going forward, perhaps most importantly given the recent changes to the NSS, the students’ unions structure enables us to have a real focus on academic study in all its forms and to really demonstrate to students that principally our role is to defend and extend their academic interests. What is very clear is that all our activity flows through students’ academic experiences but that does not mean that other areas aren’t represented. Our Liberation Groups this year have gone from strength to strength, our campaigns are active and are based in the community just as much as they are in the classroom and we have active student societies that represent the academic experience and non-academic. But at its core there are many communities of students brought together principally by their mode and form of study here, and on top of that hundreds of other communities bonded by their wider experiences in life and in society.”
Jon Chambers
Head of Student Voice
Middlesex University Students' Union
Staffordshire University Students' Union
‘Having worked across a number of HE Students’ Unions, Staffs SU certainly represents a unique approach that places the academic representation of its students at the core of all of its activity. As an organisation the strategic commitment was made that academic representation is crucial to all avenues of our work and we moved away from the more traditional portfolios (such as Sports Officer and Welfare Officer) to embrace this. Officers are assigned a faculty upon taking up the role (a decision they reach via consensus and it not always being the ones from which they originate) as well a strategic strand from the organisations strategy that they lead on. As it makes up a core part of all officer’s roles and it supported by a pyramid system of other representative roles it means we focus on achieving our goals for students. Over the past couple of years under this system, our election turnout and academic representative engagement has increased dramatically and allowed us to increase our impact on the student experience.’
Matthew Bedding
Student Engagement Manager
Staffordshire University Students' Union