It is the season for graduation and, often, the summer ball.
The opportunity to dress up and have fun isn’t the preserve of Oxbridge colleges, as this card from Middlesex University Students’ Union shows.
I don’t have much to say about this card, except perhaps to make an observation about the changing roles of Students’ Unions. You can go back to Bologna and see in the student natios – which controlled hiring and discipline of teachers – a proto students’ union. In the UK students’ unions developed – via the Junior Common Room in Oxbridge colleges – as being a primarily social organisation. And whilst some students’ unions were politicised (my own experience at LSE was very much with an SU that did politics big time), most also, or only, had a function of providing cheap beer, parties and maybe a shop on campus too.
That is changing. Bars are no longer a guaranteed profit for students’ unions, as students’ habits change and as the composition of the student body changes. If you’ll forgive me an anonymous anecdote, I worked with one university whose students’ union took a step back, looked at its student population, and realised that the 18-year-old-away-from-home student was a minority. The union changed – very much for the better – to address the needs of its actual members, and is a big part, in my view, of the university’s ongoing successes.
Here’s a free online jigsaw of the postcard. The card wasn’t sent, so I can’t be certain of the date, but the telephone area code for the manufacturer (01252) dates it at 1995 or afterwards. It is also marked as “not for sale” so I guess must have been made as promotional material to be given out on open days or as part of an induction goody bag?
Were you at the party? Are you in the card? Please comment below!