What are Student Officers and why should I even care?

Chances are you have just tried to get to your lecture and have had to fight your way through crowds of people singing, shouting, handing out flyers, waving placards wildy, threatening to attack you with a rhino, and even a dancing car/chicken or two. By this point you are probably wondering what on earth is going on, have the students gone mad? Is this a new form of tuition fees protest?

No it is the beginning of the Student Officer elections, and unfortunately for you there will be a few more people on the concourse to avoid than just your average, depressed, Embrace flyering teams.

What are Student Officers?

Student Officers in short are democratically elected once a year to represent students and to run the Student's Union. Officers work full time for one year and get paid for that year. They are a strange breed of students in limbo. They are technically students but they don't study and they are also full time members of staff. These people dancing across the concourse will one day be managing directors and sit in executive board meetings, finance committees and trustee board meetings, and will essentially be responsible for whatever the Union does for one year.

They also each have a portfolio or area of work, this is where they are expected to focus the rest of the time they don't spend on being managing directors. So that may be Activities, Welfare, Sport, Women's etc.

Why should I even care?

Officers have a fair amount of leverage when it comes to steering the political direction of the Student's Union. The Student's Union is frequently required to make political statements to the media, or with other trade Unions such as the UCU, and your Officers will play a huge role in writing these statements. For example, down in a particular Student's Union in London the Activities Officer was required to justify the existence of the Islamic Circle society to the baying national media. Not a task for the faint hearted.

These people will shape your student experience. Club nights, drink prices, nursery places, sandwich shops and the rest will all go past the Student Officers at some point. So although all drinks in bar one being bright pink* for the next year might sound like a brilliant manifesto statement right now, do you really trust this person to determine the financial forecast of a multi million pound charity?

*This isn't any one's policy...or I hope it isn't... I don't even like pink.