In today’s changing financial and social climate, is it still feasible—and beneficial—for students’ unions to rely heavily on student volunteers to make activities and events happen?
Back in the summer at the Membership Services Conference, we asked SU staff, “should you be student-led for student-led’s sake in student opportunities?”
We heard from colleagues with different approaches—ranging from a “build it, and they will come” model at Bedfordshire SU to a heavily student-led model at Brighton SU, with Herts SU landing somewhere in the middle.
At the Northern Voice Conference in Hull a few weeks ago, we revisited this question—not just for student opportunities staff, but to get a broader sense of where SUs are heading and how student-led we should be.
Instead of a panel, we discussed different approaches before splitting into two groups to prepare for a classic debating-soc style debate.
Both sides prepared excellent opening statements, highlighting some valid points.
Up for debate
Here’s what the SU-led approach said:
- Students today don’t have time to organise activities – they’re busy and academically focused.
- SUs have the knowledge and networks to handle the “boring bits” of planning, so students can focus on ideas while staff make them happen.
- Research and insight teams are developing advanced tools for collecting and analysing student feedback to create purposeful, informed events and activities.
- Traditional student leadership structures (e.g., societies, sports clubs, and volunteering groups) can be too rigid for many students.
The student-led side presented some different arguments:
- SUs are learning environments, and students develop skills best through hands-on experience—activities provide spaces to learn, fail, and try new things.
- Student-led activities often achieve better attendance because organisers are personally invested and encourage participation.
- Student leadership builds confidence, skills, and networks—valuable experiences with clear benefits for CVs and job applications.
A bit of both
At both the Membership Services Conference panel and the Northern Voice debate, the conclusion was unsurprisingly, we need a bit of both.
While that may not sound like the most exciting answer, breaking it down further revealed some interesting nuances.
The approaches taken by specific work areas within SUs don’t always align with the SU’s overall approach. This was evident when participants were asked to position both their specific area of work and the overall SU approach on a spectrum ranging from SU-led to student-led.
A disconnect was often observed between these two areas, as well as significant variation across societies, events, course reps and sports.
It seems appropriate that there is variation in the approaches adopted, after all the needs and contexts of different programmes will require different approaches.
What I found most interesting (and was the point of the session) was that many didn’t feel they were where they should be on the spectrum.
Individuals felt that the approaches they rely on were lacking in some way. Although perhaps surprisingly people wanted to move both left and right on the scale, with no consensus on whether student led or su led was ‘better’ in some objective way.
Many report falling back to the same methodologies, often the ones that have been done the same way many times before. If something doesn’t feel like it’s working it’s worth asking if the methods you rely on are always the best for your specific context, resources, aims, and student body.
We talked about the importance of intentionally designing student engagement methodologies and selecting the appropriate tool for the purpose at hand.
Changing things up
Right now many services and students unions aren’t content with their approach to student leadership. Yet there is no single way we should be doing this work, it all hinges on context and student needs. If people desire a change, they need to evaluate what they are doing and make a conscious decision about approaches they are adopting and how they involve students in the work.
While the level and method of student involvement may differ based on specific circumstances, most people involved in student life would agree that students should be actively engaged in all aspects of their unions and activities.
As a sector we’re usually quite clear about “why” students should lead in student opportunities. Those that do are exposed to life changing developmental opportunities, they develop a deep sense of belonging, and they are able to influence on issues that really matter to them.
What seems to be harder for the sector is “how and when” students lead. There are many ways that students can lead activities and not all of them involve being a committee member. Student voice and data gathering can support in designing impactful opportunities for students that could be delivered by the SU. Developing a toolkit of approaches to student leadership could help SUs quickly and easily adapt to meet changing contexts and needs of students.
Fancy exploring this for your SU? Here’s some questions for you to consider.
- How do you know what your student body wants and needs for your service area?
- How can you be confident that you are meeting the needs of your students in your service area?
- What methods and mechanisms do you have in place for students to lead?
- Where the SU are leading, how do you know this is where students want you to put energy?
- Where students are leading, how does the SU add value, and where do you (at times) get in the way or make it harder?
Where students are involved it should be developmental, it should be genuine, in other words, you should really be listening. Where SUs do lots of listening work and research and they identify a desire or need for students, it may be appropriate for them to just make that activity/event happen with minimal further engagement from students.
