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 and the Students' Union website can be found at DSU homepage
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[edit] 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. Designed by Architects Co-Partnership, the Brutalist, angular concrete building was completed in 1965 under the supervision of architect Sir Ove Arup, whose Kingsgate Bridge, adjacent, opened two years later. Built into the steeply sloping bank of the River Wear, Dunelm House is notable internally for the fact that the main staircase linking all five levels of the building runs in an entirely straight line. This was intended by the building's architects to create the feeling of an interior street.[1]
In 1968 Dunelm House won a Civic Trust award,[2] though the architecture of Dunelm House is not generally well-liked in the city[citation needed]. On the other hand, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the noted architecture historian, considered the building, "Brutalist by tradition but not brutal to the landscape ... the elements, though bold, [are] sensitively composed."[1] Durham City Council's Local Plan notes that the "powerful" building, together with Kingsgate Bridge, "provides an exhilarating pedestrian route ... out into open space over the river gorge".[3]
[edit] Ents and services
[edit] 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 advisors who work in the Advice Centre, runs the DSU Nightbus that ensures students can get home safely, and organises "associations" for specific minority groups of students whose interests are deemed to require additional non-collegiate provision.
[edit] Commercial services
DSU also runs a number of commercial ventures, including shops, cafés, bars and events. Late night events include Planet of Sound and Revolver every Friday and Saturday; two new events are proposed for alternate Wednesday and Thursday nights.
All of DSU's commercial services 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 UK.
[edit] 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.[citation needed]
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. The DSU has had some success in the year 2006/07 with hosting events with promoters, including nights with acts such as Hed Kandi and Pendulum.
[edit] 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.
[edit] '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.
A story recently discovered in the DSU archive relates that in 1978 DUCK held a competition to find the most unpopular student in Durham with the intention of throwing them in the river. At the time the story went to print the DSU sabbaticals were the front runners[citation needed].
DUCK was formed in the 1960s to raise money for local, national and international charities. It also runs a number of expeditions to destinations including Everest, Kilimanjaro and Jordan.
Durham University also runs a humanitarian project in Southern Sri Lanka in partnership with Sri Lankan NGO Sarvodaya. Project Sri Lanka "is an ‘all-inclusive' project"[4], involving undergraduate and postgraduate students and members of academic staff from Durham University, as well as academics and partner organisations in Sri Lanka.
[edit] 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 most 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.
[edit] DSU and the colleges
The University of Durham is a collegiate university and therefore the role of the central students' union is different from 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.
[edit] 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 to the bank and its parent institution stood at £303,000 in June 2005. Restructuring of the organisation followed and resulted in a small surplus being posted for the year 2005/06.
On a number of occasions, some have suggested have that DSU might disaffiliate from the NUS [5], however none of those against affiliation have yet pushed the issue to a full student debate and vote. This is largely because regardless of the political arguments of affiliation, DSU and the JCRs make a significant financial savings from being able to purchase alcohol and other products through NUS Services Ltd.
[edit] 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)
- Jeremy Vine, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
- George Alagiah, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
- Alex Standish, former Deputy President (Education and Welfare)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: County Durham (2nd ed. 1983, revised by Elizabeth Williamson), Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, pp.233-234
- ^ Architects Co-Partnership, "Awards and Commendations", accessed 28 October 2006
- ^ Durham City Council, City of Durham Local Plan, accessed 5 November 2006
- ^ www.durham.ac.uk/project.srilanka
- ^ Hannah Costigan, "Durham to pull out of NUS", Palatinate, accessed 28 October 2006
[edit] External links
- Durham Students' Union
- DUCK Home page
- Photograph of Dunelm House in 1965 from Architects Co-Partnership
