Durham Students' Union
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The Durham Students' Union is a body, set up as the Durham Colleges Students’ Representative Council in 1899 and renamed in 1969, with the intention of representing and providing welfare and services for the students of the University of Durham in Durham, England. The union is almost universally known by the initialism DSU.
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Location
DSU occupies and manages Dunelm House, a university-owned building in the centre of Durham where a wide variety of student activities take place. The Brutalist, angular concrete building was completed in 1963 under the supervision of architect Sir Ove Arup, whose Kingsgate Bridge, adjacent, opened two years later. Both bridge and building have won Civic Trust awards, though the architecture of Dunelm House is not generally well-liked in the city. Image:Dunelm3.jpg
Ents and Services
Welfare
The union provides a number of student welfare services, in addition to those provided by the University. To that end, it employs full-time trained counsellors, runs the DSU Nightbus that ensures students can get home safely (regardless of their immediate financial state) and organises representation groups for minorities suffering from discrimination.
Commercial Services
DSU also runs a number of commercial ventures, including a shop, a cafe, a bar and a night-club. These operations are intended to make a profit which can be used to subsidise welfare support, student societies and other student services by DSU. Although DSU is also given a grant by the university, it is much lower than that received by most students unions in the U.K..
Social Events
During the late 1960s and the 1970s Dunelm House was a popular music venue, hosting bands including Pink Floyd and Procol Harum. According to their drummer Simon Kirke, Free's most popular song All Right Now was written by bassist Andy Fraser in their dressing room in Dunelm House, after a set of slower material had failed to excite the audience.
The current DSU often struggles to match the Durham colleges' abilities to organise 'ents' and socials. However, it runs the successful 'Planet of Sound' club night every Friday, which has become the biggest university-wide event in Durham. Other ents are held most Wednesday evenings, though the success of these is highly variable.
DSU Societies
DSU is notable for the high number of ratified societies it supports. There are usually between 120 and 150 DSU-ratified societies at any time. A full and up-to-date list of DSU's societies can be found on the DSU website. These societies do not include the University's assorted athletic- and sports-related clubs which are ratified by DSU's "sister" organisation, the Durham University Athletic Union (DUAU), or college-based societies.
'DUCK'
Unlike many Students' Unions, DSU does not have "RAG week", but instead, DUCK - Durham University Charities' Kommittee - organises charitable events and activities throughout the year. It is rumoured that "RAG" was forced to disband after one week when several students broke into the nearby HMP Durham, and left a box of Cadbury's Milk Tray on the desk of the governor. DUCK rose, phœnix-like, from the ashes of Durham "RAG".
Politics
DSU is designed to be truly democratic - to this end every student has a vote in the principal elections and in the sovereign body of DSU - the Union General Meeting - as in all students' unions. DSU holds two major elections a year, and has pioneered the use of electronic voting to increase participation. In the 2003 and 2004 Sabbatical elections it received the highest turnout of any student union in the UK, a fact used by some to show the continued relevance of DSU to the students of Durham.
DSU has succeeded in having a say in national student politics. In 2004 a campaign run by the Union appeared on BBC, ITV and Channel 4 News numerous times throughout the debate over variable tuition charges. A huge number of regional and local TV and radio appearances for Union officers were secured over that period. During this time, DSU won praise from politicians, many within NUS and other Unions in the North-East for its uncharacteristically high-profile impact on the national debate on University funding.
DSU and the colleges
The University of Durham is a collegiate university and therefore the role of the central students' union is different to most other universities. Each of Durham's colleges has its own student representative body, known in most colleges as the Junior Common Room, which provides services and organises events within the college; while most decisions within the central Students' Union are made by JCR representatives. This gives DSU an avenue for encouraging involvement not available to Unions in most universities; but also limits participation, as many people choose to get involved with their JCR, which deals with many of the issues with immediate effects on their lives, instead of the central Union.
DSU's future
The announcement in early 2005 that DSU has been operating with a large annual loss has prompted serious debate on the future of the organisation and the building in which it is currently based. According to Durham's student newspaper, Palatinate, DSU's debt stood at £303,000 in June 2005. Suggestions have been made that the DSU might follow Sunderland University's Student Union and disaffiliate from the NUS [1].
Notable Former Officers
A number of notable figures have been involved in DSU in the past. These include:
- the late Mo Mowlam, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
- George Alagiah, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
- Alex Standish, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
External links
| Image:DU 2-col lrg.png | Durham University |
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