London universities' management close down the students' Union

[OhBuggerandArse]

Another blow to higher education.

'A students' union which is seen as a key hub of political protest in London faces closure after a decision by senior academics.

The University of London Union is to cease in its present form from summer 2014 after a review was accepted by university management.

Under the plan ULU will lose its role as a student union with elected officers but retain social facilities.'

I'm not surprised they would try it; I wonder how many other universities' management are watching carefully to see what happens (and whether they could get away with it too)?

There is a big difference at London in that the university is a federation made up of many colleges and each college has it's own student's union as well as the main union. In many ways having this two tier union system has been cumbersome and the elected representatives at ULU were actually elected by an incredibly small number of students.

Is that really the issue, though? Do you really think that would have been seen as so much of a problem if the ULU hadn't taken such a strong line against fees and driven the protest agenda?

Ah, and they wanted the building to make some money with, according to the Times Higher

i went to a london university and as far as i could tell everyone supported their own student union and didn't really bother with ulu

my student union made a big fuss about fees etc

i think ulu is unnecessary as the unions of the parts are strong

and the building they have is huge (and unnecessary!)

Ulu is quite a strange entity (with a prime site building). I did a post grad at imperial and although I lived by ucl/ulu I almost never went there and wasn't even aware of their range of services. I'd have gone to imperial union if I needed anything and ucl people would go to ucl etc for all the London colleges (even school of pharmacy and soas and other smaller colleges have their own unions).

My DS went to ULU in his first year as he lived across the road from it. Now he is more likely to use UCLU, as it is a bit closer to him. He's not interested in student politics - just cheap nights out.

Hmm. DS was talking about this yesterday.
ULU is a student voice which attempts to co ordinate other student voices in London and I'm not surprised someone wants the political voice out and I'm not surprised that the current student body is too worried about references for future jobs to make any significant protest.

One very useful function of ULU which will go is the student accommodation office which provides invaluable listings of affordable accommodation for the students, and a certain degree of regulation of landlords.

But funny person, ULU can only represent the federated colleges - which is only about half of the universities in London anyway. So it doesn't even really fulfill a pan London role.

I have fond memories of beanos nights at ulu after fives at uclu. I had no idea they did anything other than social events!