Cambridge University Students' Union

Cambridge University Students' Union

Established	1971
Institution	University of Cambridge
President	Thomas Chigbo (St John's)
Other Sabbatical Officers	Coordinator: Clare Tyson (Murray Edwards), Access: Joe Farish (Trinity), Education: Sam Wakeford (Trinity Hall), Welfare and Graduates: Amiya Bhatia (St John's), Women's: Natalie Szarek (Newnham)
Location	Old Examination Hall, New Museums Site, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Members	c. 21,000 total
Affiliated to	National Union of Students, Aldwych Group, UKCISA
Homepage	www.cusu.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge University Students' Union (CUSU) is the university-wide representative body for students at the University of Cambridge, England. CUSU is a federal body made up of college JCRs and MCRs.

CUSU was founded as the Cambridge Students' Union (CSU) in 1971 and formally recognised by the university authorities on May 25, 1984 and renamed, following a student referendum in March 1985, as CUSU - Cambridge University Students Union. Its second president was Charles Clarke, later a Labour MP, Secretary of State for Education and Home Secretary.

There had been previous university-wide groups, such as CAMNUS (Cambridge NUS), which was founded in 1964 by Gordon Heald, John Bibby and others. CAMNUS arranged certain university-wide student facilities, such as 'CAMNUS Coaches' (an end-of-term bus service to all parts of the country), and an inter-collegiate mail service.

CUSU should not be confused with the Cambridge Union Society, a world-famous debating society established in 1815; membership to both is open to all students at Cambridge, but the Cambridge Union is a private society and membership is dependent on payment of a subscription. Despite the Cambridge Union Society never having been a students' union in the modern sense, it did briefly affiliate to the National Union of Students in 1924 under the leadership of Rab Butler.

Although graduate students at Cambridge University are members of CUSU, there is also a students' union specifically for graduate student affairs, the University of Cambridge Graduate Union.

Officers

CUSU holds elections annually for 6 or 7 full-time officers, several part-time officers and a number of delegates (13 in 2009, with the President making the 14th delegate ex officio) to the National Union of Students (NUS) Annual Conference.

The full-time officers take a one year sabbatical from their studies (or directly after they have graduated) and are:

• President
• Education
• Access Officer
• Coordinator
• Ethical Affairs Officer (only when funding is available)
• Welfare & Graduates Officer
• Women's Officer

There are also four "Autonomous Campaigns" of the CUSU, which are semi-independent bodies dealing with a particular subset of students. They are:

• CUSU LBGT (Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender)
• CUSU International
• Black Students Campaign
• CUSU Women's Union (the Chair of which is the sabbatical Women's Officer)

The chairs of the autonomous campaigns may only be elected by members of that campaign.

Controversy

In March 2006, the largest Cambridge college students' union, Trinity College Students' Union voted to disaffiliate from CUSU for the academic year 2006/2007. Several other colleges were reported to be also considering the option.^[1] Trinity College Students' Union reaffiliated in early 2007, following re-engagement work by the incumbent sabbatical officers.

Former CSU/CUSU Presidents and Sabbatical Officers

Notable former sabbaticals include:

• Charles Clarke, President 1971-72.
• David Lidington, Deputy-President 1977-78.
• Natalie Ceeney, President 1990-1991.
• Pav Akhtar, President 2001-2.
• Wes Streeting, President 2004-5

♦ - Officers elected after seeking a second term

References

External links

• Cambridge University Students' Union