National Union of Students-Union of Students in Ireland


NUS-USI, the student movement in Northern Ireland was formed in 1972 by bilateral agreement between the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom and the Union of Students in Ireland, to address the particular problems of representing students in Northern Ireland. As of 2018, NUS-USI represents approximately 200,000 students in the region.
Students at an affiliated college are members of both national students' unions. The elected leader of the organisation is a full-time representative, elected as a sabbatical from one of the member colleges, and serves as a member of the USI Officer Board and the NUS National Executive Committee. An elected term is one year long. An officer within the executive of the movement may hold an officer position for a maximum of two terms.
As of March 2018, the President of NUS-USI was Olivia Potter-Hughes. NUS-USI also has a number of part-time student officers filling the roles of further education officer, welfare officer, campaigns and communications officer, international students' officer. Autonomous liberation campaigns also elect part-time officers who fill the roles of disabled students officer, women's officer, LGBT+ officer, trans students' officer and BAEM officer.

History

Following the model of Scottish Universities, a Students' Representative Council was formally established at Queen's College Belfast in 1897 in tandem with the opening of a Students' Union Building in what is now the music department on that campus. Student representatives from Queen's University subsequently played roles in founding the National Union of Students in 1922 and the Irish Students Association, which stimulated the formation of the Union of Students in Ireland in 1959.
Increasing student activism and a desire for more democratic forms of student involvement in the late 1960s led to a moving away from a model of Student Representative Councils as a system of governance towards the creation of students’ unions and more participatory "general meetings", accessible to all students. Students’ unions also took on a more campaigning role and inspired by the experience of American student organisations, Northern Irish student activists such as Michael Farrell, Eamonn McCann and Bernadette Devlin led campaigns for "civil rights" in Northern Ireland. During this period, students' unions in Northern Ireland separately affiliated to each national union, depending to a large extent on the religious/political disposition of their members.
The NUS-USI was involved in the Student Housing Association, and the promotion of a wider range of services. It also campaigned against sectarianism on campus allowing Students’ Unions to promote initiatives such as the "Peace Jobs Progress" campaign in 1978 and the Peace People for example. Another feature during this period was the development of Students’ Union commercial services, stimulated by the National Student Unions.
Together with local students' unions, NUS-USI now provides a range of services, including campaigns on education, welfare and citizenship, as well as infrastructure and support for the individual students' unions. NUS-USI celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2012.
At its annual conference held in Derry in March 2018, NUS-USI introduced two new part-time student officer roles in the form of an international students' officer and a trans students' officer.