“Won’t somebody please think of the students?”: The challenge of aligning sabbatical officer aspirations with long term strategy in Students’ Unions

This session will present the results of Sarah’s MBA dissertation, completed in May 2018. The research question was "How do the aspirations of annually elected sabbatical officers impact long term strategy in students’ unions?" and the aim of the study was to "Determine a method which can successfully align the aspirations of sabbatical officers with long term strategic planning in students' unions".

The research was conducted from September 2017 to May 2018 and involved input from a number of Unions. This session will also invite discussion around the study, and time for questions.

 

Audience: Elected Officers and Staff

 

Workshop Presenters:

• Sarah Ellis – Chief Executive, Wrexham Glyndwr Students’ Union

 

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Delivering Academic Opportunities for Students

This session aims to share best practice around how Students' Unions can effectively work in partnership with their institution to co-deliver successful Academic Opportunities (Student Engagement Opportunities) to enhance the student experience in line with a students' course and interests.

We will provide evidence of how we have established and fostered a strong partnership with our institution around Student Engagement; and showcase a new co-developed portfolio of opportunities which have maximum impact on our members for both their current time at University and their future employability. We will also provide insight into our success in maximising student engagement with each of the opportunities, through our use of member data.

 

Audience: Staff

 

Workshop Presenters:

• Jennifer Barnes - Student Voice & Impact Manager, University of Lincoln Students’ Union 

 

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Using TOTUM to support your students' union – a session for CEOs/ GMs and Senior Leaders 

Totum, powered by NUS extra will better engage students and provide more features and benefits for students' unions. Learn more about the Totum features, the go to market plan, support available to you and how it can help you lead your students' union. Totum will have additional features to support your union and integrate into students' lives. Totum includes a number of different tools to help students' unions deliver their work, as well as dramatically improving the functionality for students too. This session targets members of senior leadership teams within students' unions to support with leading the changes, and taking advantage of the new functionality within Students' Unions, and will have special focus on leading digital transformation in SUs

Audience: CEOs/GMs and Senior Leaders

Presenters:

• Peter Robertson - Director of Enterprise, NUS
• Julian Howison - OneVoice

 

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Doing democracy differently – How the NSoA does decision making. And how it doesn’t.

Students’ Unions have approached democracy in the same way for over 100 years. While we’ve amended and developed the infrastructure and activity around it to meet changes to our environment, we haven’t really changed the core way in which we enable students to make decisions about their education. 

If you are curious, come to this workshop to explore the historical context of democracy and begin to consider using alternative methods of decision making.  We’ll look directly at the experience of the National Society of Apprentices and what structures and systems they use to make decisions.

We intend to challenge the way you think about student representation. We don’t need to rely on outdated and arguably irrelevant mechanisms for representation and decision making, especially if we truly mean to find new ways of engaging an increasingly diverse student population.
 

Audience: Staff

 

Presenters:

• Arran Cottam - Development Consultant - NUS/National Society of Apprentices 

 

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Mentoring Up/Mentoring Down

An exploration of how the Senior Manager - Officer Relationship can be considered one of mutual mentorship both in the period of office and beyond. Using the five year mutual mentor relationship between the presenters as an example, we examine how via mentoring over an operational project gave the officer insight to stay in the movement, and the Senior Manager better understanding of the changing student profile and inspiration to keep learning.

 

Audience: Elected Officers and Staff

 

Presenters:

• Peter Baran - General Manager, SOAS Students' Union 
• Alex Fulton - Head of Communications and Engagement, LSE Students' Union and Arts Student' Union

 

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Crisis Comms

The student movement gets some great, and some not so great, media coverage. This session will look at how to engage local media effectively and cover techniques and tips to deal with press and media crises. This session is suitable for any SU staff member directly responsible for press and PR and senior leaders who take on this function.

 

Audience: Staff

 

Presenters:

• Holly Townsend, Press Officer, NUS

 

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QSU Excellent: Sharing really good practice

We will be having a look at some really good practice from a few different Unions who’ve achieved “excellent” in particular components of Quality Students’ Union.

This workshop is ideal for staff thinking about using QSU to drive improvements in their Students’ Union.

 

Audience: Staff

 

Presenters:

• Anneessa Mahmood - QSU Programme Manager, NUS 

 

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The Global Goals: How SUs can engage with the Sustainable Development Goals to broaden students’ understanding of sustainability

This session will introduce the UN’s ‘Global Goals’ and provide participants with the opportunity to explore how their SU might meaningfully engage with them as a campaigning tool. We’ll hear from other students’ unions who have used the Goals to embed sustainability and social justice in the curriculum and to map their own activities around environmental and social action.

To achieve the aim of NUS 100 – to create a more just and sustainable future for all – we must equip our students with the knowledge, skills, attributes, and values to make a difference through their future personal and professional lives. This session will work with SUs to use the ‘Global Goals’ as an entry point for thinking about why sustainability matters to your students, and what you can do about it!

 

Audience: Elected Officers and Staff

 

Presenters:

• Quinn Runkle - Education for Sustainable Development Programme Manager, NUS 

 

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Lots of information about students' unions, guilds, and associations

Teesside's Chief Executive Jon Berg will use the SU Survey and other sources to take you through the latest trends in SU's, covering university mission groups and other information to help you understand your SU. This session will include practical tips you can use with elected officers and staff when you get home.

 

Audience: Elected Officers and Staff

 

Presenters:

• Jon Berg – Chief Executive, Teeside University Students’ Union 

 

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Collectivism in a Turbulent Market: Part Two

At Convention this year we heard from Keele students’ union on how collective action can protect the financial future of our movement in uncertain times.  In a follow up to this session we will work together to look at how practically we can act in more collective ways to grow our income, increase our impact, and make a bigger difference to students on our campuses.

Audience: Commerical staff and CEOs

 

Presenters:

• Daryl Ormerod, CEO, Keele Students' Union

 

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NUS at 96: Introduction to NUS through the History of our Movement

From our founding President Ivison Macadam to the present day this session will take new officers and staff through the history of NUS, how our collective endeavour amplifies our work today, and how as new staff and officers you can shepherd our collective ambitions toward a just and sustainable future.

Audience: Officers and Staff

 

Presenters:

• Sarah McIntosh - Director of People and Talent, NUS

 

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