Is the voice of students’ unions too powerful?

Of course there should be a discussion about the role of students and students' unions in institutional decision making, but the idea that student voice is becoming too influential in institutions is absurd. Yes, institutions are doing more to engage students in their governance and decision making, but for the most part this is largely a listening exercise. In some instances, students & SUs can point to changes and tweaks they have secured, but in reality students are not fundamentally altering the direction of institutions in any dramatic way. To that end, in my view there is no case to answer at present that students are therefore too powerful. Universities listen to students because they want feedback on what is being done well, and what could be improved. It's an important part of fostering a community, and supporting students to direct their own learning. And as for the point about turnout in SU elections, yes in many cases they need to improve but fortunately SUs don't just rely on election turnout to foster engagement with students (course reps, surveys, focus groups and a host other ways to listen to and then convey the student voice to institutions). If we want to get shirty about turnouts, I'm much more concerned about the fact that turnout in many local council elections is less than 1 in 5, than I am about SU election turnout!

Please... https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/29/bath-university-vice-chancellor-says-she-is-not-embarrassed-by-468k-pay-controversy https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/plymouth-university-fire-spending-hundreds-thousands-pounds/ https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/bangor-universitys-250000-make-over-11393937 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/university-financial-health-check-2017-future-prospects https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/15/six-uk-universities-break-advertising-rules-with-pitches-to-students But yes, students are "short-termist, when it is their institutions’ long-term futures that matter most" and it is only management who care about future students. And of course staff elections to University Council always has such high-turn out... As for the lines "The majority of new undergraduates are barely adults" and the silly directions and arcane points they make, have you been in a University Committee recently?

What would you suggest to increase student voter turn out in SU elections? Because I'm sure that any support universities wants to offer their SU's to achieve this would be greatly received! You make some valid points but descend into nonsense at the end of your article, you begin by saying all the things that SUs would agree with, yes students should be involved in decision making, and then somehow attempt to relate this to excessive students' unions power? Perhaps you should be looking more internally at how universities can effectively engage students to meaningfully add input, surely there is a role for the university to play here in coaching students on how they can make change at these higher levels, the answer is not to dismiss the student voice, or more accurately to your point, dismiss students' unions. This sounds like an article written by someone who has an agenda to get rid of SUs, not someone who wants to embrace the student voice meaningfully.