A few months ago, I shared a reflection on LinkedIn about being student-led.
It wasn’t meticulously planned – it came amid some work we’ve been doing at ARU Students’ Union with the team from Counterculture, shaping our new strategy, a strategy we’ll be sharing publicly this August.
I wrote it quickly, like I do with most of what I post on LinkedIn, as a way of ordering my own thoughts. It’s something I’ve found useful, therapeutic even – putting half-formed reflections into words, not necessarily to provoke a response, but to make sense of whatever’s been on my mind. I assumed, as usual, it would land quietly among a small circle of peers.
What I didn’t expect was the response.
Messages from across the student movement, likes and comments from people I hadn’t heard from in years. Colleagues, alumni, students, and staff all engaged, not because the post was perfectly crafted, or even particularly provocative, but because it touched a nerve. The idea of being genuinely student-led struck a chord.
That reaction has stayed with me, not because I believe what we’re doing is groundbreaking in itself, but because it revealed something deeper – that in 2025, stating clearly and unapologetically that students should be in charge still feels radical. That shouldn’t be the case. But it is.
Normalising the illusion
In UK higher education, the language of student engagement is everywhere – dashboards track feedback in real time, surveys quantify satisfaction, and strategies proudly tout “co-creation,” “partnership,” and “student-centred design.”
And to be clear, much of this is good. We’ve come a long way from the tokenistic student rep on a committee or the once-a-year feedback form. Passionate professionals and committed institutions are doing meaningful work to listen to students better.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve also become excellent at managing student voice. We frame it, channel it and systematise it. We’ve built complex mechanisms that allow students to speak, but not necessarily to lead.
In many places, partnership is performative. Students are consulted late in the process, if at all. Their insights are welcomed, but rarely drive decisions. They’re offered influence, but not authority.
In that environment, a statement like “students should be in charge” lands like a jolt – not because it’s new, but because it’s been quietly buried beneath layers of process and precedent.
Value versus structure
At ARU Students’ Union, we’ve spent a lot of time sitting with that tension. And perhaps it’s worth saying, I’m no academic. I’m a former part-time officer from Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen. I didn’t complete my degree – I was too easily distracted, enjoying too much of university life in the early 2000s. But that’s where my love for the student movement was sparked.
Back then, in a small SU with a single General Manager and limited resources, it was clear who was leading – Darren and Olly, the President and Deputy President (a particular pairing that spring to mind, but there were others), were the heart of it. It wasn’t always tidy or strategic, but it was honest, passionate, and undeniably student-led.
That experience left a lasting mark. It showed me what students could do when trusted with real responsibility.
Now, more than 20 years on, I’m far more informed, about representation, about governance, about how power and influence really move in these spaces. I lead a Membership Services Directorate, and I’ve seen the complexity that comes with scale and structure.
But that early experience still anchors me. It reminds me that no matter how sophisticated our systems get, student leadership has to be more than a principle, it has to be the foundation everything else is built on.
If we’re serious about being student-led, it can’t just mean having strong elected officers or running more consultations. It has to mean structurally embedding students at the heart of what we do, and being willing to redesign the way we operate around that principle.
That’s hard work. It means rethinking governance, asking challenging questions about where power lies, who sets the agenda, and what assumptions we carry about “professionalism” and “efficiency.” It means prioritising student ambition over organisational comfort, and it also means trust.
Not just trusting students to give feedback on a process – but trusting them to design, shape, and lead that process from the start. To not just be passengers on the journey, but to chart the course.
Working with Counterculture has been catalytic in that regard. Through countless conversations, strategic deep-dives, and moments of honest discomfort, we’ve kept returning to one central question: What would this look like if students were truly in charge?
Not just consulted, or visible, but central. Resourced, supported and empowered to lead, not despite being students, but because of it.
(If I hear one more comment about students not being good enough without a staff member (SU or university) to hold their hand I might just lose the proverbial plot.)
It’s a subtle shift in language, from student-focused to student-led. But in practice, it changes everything.
Resonation
I think, we may be in the middle of a quiet reawakening.
Across the sector, long-standing assumptions are being questioned. What does it mean to belong in a university? What’s the purpose of higher education in 2025, and who gets to shape it? How do we build institutions that are not only inclusive but also just?
Students are demanding more, not only from their academic experience, but from their democratic one. They’re asking for more than voice – they’re asking for agency. They want to be part of the solution, not just the subject of it.
At the same time, students’ unions are under pressure. The models many of us inherited, full-time sabbatical officers, traditional student councils, one-size-fits-all engagement, are creaking under the weight of shifting demographics and declining time – and reduced budgets. Today’s students are more diverse, more time-poor, more digitally native, and more community-minded than ever before.
To meet them where they are, we can’t just improve what we’ve always done, we need to reimagine it. And in that context, the idea of being “audaciously student-led” becomes not just a bold ambition, but a necessary provocation.
- It says – what if we stopped designing around systems, and started designing around students?
- It says – perhaps what’s needed isn’t more frameworks for engagement, but a redistribution of power.
- It says – the future of student voice isn’t consultation. It’s courage.
An overdue revolution
We’re still on the journey. Our new strategy launches in August, and with it, a set of commitments that we hope will push us closer to that vision of authentic student leadership.
But even now, I’m grateful for the conversations that have emerged since that original post.
They’ve reminded me that the desire for deeper, bolder, more student-led practice isn’t isolated, it’s growing. They’ve reminded me that this isn’t just about ARU SU. It’s about a broader movement toward a more democratic, responsive, and just student experience.
And most of all, they’ve reminded me that audaciously student-led isn’t a luxury or a radical idea. It’s the foundation we should all be building on.
If that still feels revolutionary in 2025, perhaps it’s because the revolution is long overdue.
