Northumbria Students' Union

Who we are

Northumbria Students' Union is a charity. We exist by law as a charity to ensure that students have a voice within the University. Therefore we don’t make a profit as such. Any money that we make over the bar or through other services is reinvested into services that will help students in their time at Northumbria. This might be funding for societies, paying for a professional advisor or the costs of training all of the Course Reps across the University.

We’re run by students. There is a team of 6 Sabbatical Officers (President and 5 Vice-Presidents) who are either in the middle of their course or just graduated. They are Trustees of the Union and sit on Student Council. They oversee the day to day workings of the organisation and take decisions every day that impact on how the Union is run. Every March there is an election to decide next year’s Sabbatical Officers and every student can stand.

We’re independent from the University. Whilst we work really closely with departments from all across the University, technically we are a separate organisation. This is important for loads of reasons, but mainly it means that if students have a problem in University - whether that is their course, accommodation, library etc they can come and talk to us. And they can do this in confidence that we can take up the issue with the University and help to resolve it.

We represent students. This means that the Sabbatical Officers sit on University Committees and pass on students’ opinions about decisions and changes. They also meet with the local Council and NUS to tell them what students think on certain issues. We run Course Rep, School Rep and Community Rep Schemes to make sure that students have a voice and that it is listened to across the University, locally and nationally.