Friday 12-08-2022 - 14:51

Who is NUS?

The National Union of Students (NUS), describes itself as championing students to shape the future of education.  They aim to create a fairer more prosperous society, and they believe that students are the hope for the future of education. They promote, defend and extend student rights. Their slogan is ‘We know students. We are students. We are 7 million students.’

 Their vision as NUS is to be the definitive innovative and powerful campaigning organisation.

NUS Values

Student focussed- They respect and understand the importance of student leadership and champion our member student's unions

Collaborative – Treat each other with respect without fail.

Promote Diversity - and seek out new partnerships

Learning and growing – They take responsibility for constantly improving themselves and others if they make mistakes, will learn from them, and make things better.

Change agents – They never stop trying to improve; they experiment, challenge the status quo, and never, ever do things because it’s the way they have always been done.

Striving for excellence – quality is at the heart of everything they do. They prioritise work on the areas that have the biggest impact on student's lives and celebrate their success.

What NUS gives us as members

NUS charity says it gives advice, guidance, and crisis support. They offer core support for creating and growing student unions and champion the values of students’ unions. As Members of the NUS, they say they provide:

• a regular newsletter,
• incoming query support,
• union development resources,
• trading support,
• Student union career support,
• training support and development,
• Elections services quality student unions
• Rise leadership program

Campaigns they have done

NUS has campaigned for students for over a hundred years. This is just some of what they have achieved over the last decade.

• Campaign to lift the blanket ban on gay men donating blood (2012)
• Introduction of post-graduate loans (2014)
• Won an increase in apprentice minimum wage (2015)
• Proved in court that the government wrongly deported 48,000 international students (2016)
• New bursaries for healthcare students for £5000 and up to £8000 (2019)
• 800m for students from rent wins and support funds (2020).

                                                                

Anti-Semitic Claims

NUS is currently under investigation after allegations were made from Jewish students about Antisemitism within the NUS. The current president was found to have liked or shared posts on Twitter that could be viewed as antisemitic. During the last NUS conference, a band was hired that Jewish students had asked NUS not to have as they were also linked to antisemitism, when the student approached NUS leaders they were told to sit in another room whilst the band was performing. There have also been allegations regarding an event for black students where a student was declined access because they were “not black enough.”

What we pay

UCSU pays £9225 per year to be affiliated with NUS. The union has just paid £538 per officer totaling £1614 - this was for three days of training, accommodation, and three meals a day. This does not include our first night’s accommodation or travel to and from Leeds.

Totum

Totum, owned and run by NUS offers savings for students and says it gives students £300 worth of discounts. Some of the money from sales of the Totum cards (£14.99) will be paid to UCSU. However, Student Beans and Unidays also offer discounts.

Lead & Change

The information provided above is accurate, with most of it coming directly from the NUS website. This next session is from your Officer Team and consists of their opinions formed after our experience of Lead and Change. Taking place over three days, Lead and Change is a chance for Officers to network with other Officer Teams from other universities and find out what affects their students and the campaigns they will be working on in the coming academic year. It is also an opportunity for training around how to be leaders, run an effective campaign, and communicate with your students to be delivered by NUS.

Networking

The network element of the event was valuable. We were able to meet a lot of Officer Teams from all over the country and from a range of universities quite different from our own. We were split into three groups depending on the work we would be doing throughout the year so that we could learn from and advise each other.

Over our three days at Leeds, we had two distinct opportunities to network. The first day consisted of working with Officer Teams within the same regions which was a benefit as we came together to discuss which issues students in our area of the country were facing. Some of the issues that were identified were cost of living, sexual health, consent, and accessibility.

The second opportunity to network came when Officers attended sessions and workshops, which we thought would be useful to the campaigns and events we were planning on rolling out this year. However, we personally felt that these sessions were micromanaged by NUS and we did not feel there was much chance to network with the other Officers, as a result of this we did not find it beneficial. Other networking opportunities such as during social times, while enjoyable, were few and far between as a lot of Officers preferred to stay within the groups that they were assigned on the first day or meet up with their own colleagues.

Training

The training we received from NUS was not, in our opinion, as beneficial as we would have hoped. In fact, we found the in-house training we were given at the start of our roles from the UCSU team was significantly more beneficial in our goal of representing and supporting you.

We did not find the training particularly relevant to our university as most of the issues and campaigns being discussed and used as examples did not relate to the student community at The University of Cumbria. At various points, we felt as though we were children in a classroom and not a collective of professional adults. In addition, some of the interactive activities put on to engage us started difficult disputes and discussions, which left many people feeling that their emotional wellbeing was being negatively impacted.

A number of the facilitators who were conducting the training were not previous Officers or students, they were volunteers and were not affiliated with NUS and therefore could not answer some of the more pressing questions being put to them about the ongoing investigations mentioned above about anti-semitism and the instance involving the black student being refused entry to an event.

It is our view that the training was not well planned or organised and it appeared to be the same material used for many years as one facilitator said he did the same training as an Officer 10 years previous.

What have we learned?

There are a significant number of universities thinking about disaffiliation from NUS. We did not feel that the training was beneficial to us as Officers and in turn, you as students. We felt that the three days was an infective use of UCSU money that would have been better spent on you, the students. We were not impressed with NUS’s lack of interest in meeting the needs of the Officers in attendance as Annabelle, your Welfare Officer has access requirements and NUS simply did not provide them as previously requested.

We went with the hope of learning how we could best serve you, as that is our main function and it is down to you electing us to represent you that we are here in the first place. If the only training we received had been from these three days alone and not included the training we have been provided by UCSU staff would be none the wiser about how to do that.

 

If you would like to discuss anything mentioned in this article please drop us an email at student.union@cumbria.ac.uk

Eleanor, James & Annabelle.

UCSU Officer Team 2022/23