Wollongong University Students' Association

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WUSA

University of Wollongong Undergraduate Students' Association
Student Control of Student Affairs!
Members	unknown
Country	Australia
Affiliation	NUS
Office location	Building 11, Wollongong Campus
Website	http://wusa.uow.edu.au

The University of Wollongong Undergraduate Students' Association (known as WUSA, formerly "University of Wollongong Students Association" and its governing body, the "Students' Representative Council") is the representative organisation for students at the University of Wollongong. The Association is an unicoprorated body that has departments that work within the University to achieve practical outcomes for students, as well as ensuring that both the University and federal government of Australia are held to account over their handling of student issues. WUSA provides advocacy and welfare services for students on campus.

WUSA is affiliated to the National Union of Students (Australia) and has participated in national campaigns such as the fight against upfront course fees, Voluntary Student Unionism and the ongoing struggle to reinstate free education in Australia. WUSA has also called upon the national body and other student organistaions to support its local causes in the past. In a city like Wollongong, notorious for pollution, cancer clusters and other heavy-industry-related health problems, WUSA has always been at the forefront of campus environmentalism in Australia.

The Association facilitates grassroots student collectives that organise around both student issues and wider social issues. These include education, queer rights, women's rights, anti-racism initiatives, accessibility campaigns, alternative media production and environmentalism. The Students' Association also publishes the student magazine Tertangala.

The University of Wollongong student body has long held the reputation of being "the most left-wing campus in the country". It is no coincidence that the flag of the Australian Communist Party was flown on the University's Foundation Day.

Contents 1 Activist history 1.1 National Anti-VSU Campaign 1.2 Aboriginal Tent Faculty 1.3 Queer Space 2 The Dream Team 3 Office Bearers for 2007 4 Past Presidents 5 See also 6 Notes

[edit] Activist history

Over its 34+ year history, WUSA has co-ordinated many successful student protests, occupations and even an Aboriginal Tent embassy. In 1995, 2000 University of Wollongong students besieged the campus Administration building to protest the introduction of degree fees. In 1997 WUSA students and SRC representatives participated in the occupation of the University of Technology Sydney campus in a successful campaign to prevent the introduction of buy-a-place degrees at that institution. WUSA students and staff also participated in the successful campaign to prevent the introduction of buy-a-place degrees at the University of Western Sydney in 1998.

In 2006 the WUSA President, Jess Moore, received a phone call from police, informing her that she was under investigation for her activism on campus.

[edit] National Anti-VSU Campaign

During 1999 UOW and other NSW students stormed NSW Liberal Party Head Quaters on a National Day of Action called by the National Union of Students and demanded an end to proposed VSU legislation. Media coverage included the full Sydney Morning Herald front page. The legislation was withdrawn, but introduced again and passed in 2006 when the ruling Coalition of the conservative Liberal and National parties secured the vote of Family First senator Stephen Fielding in the Australian Senate.

[edit] Aboriginal Tent Faculty

In protest against the axing of the Aboriginal Health Course. The SRC and Education Action Collective convened and run the campaign with local aboriginal, academic and student support. The campaign involved numerous and frequent protests and NUS NSW state-wide support. The end result included the University Council overturning the Vice Chancellor's decision to drop the course in spectacular fashion. The VC also agreed to funding a new Aboriginal Education Centre which now proudly overlooks the McKinnon lawn, the former site of the Tent Faculty.

The term "Tent Faculty" was chosen as a symbollic gesture of solidarity with the Aboriginal tent embassies present across Australia wherever indigenous people are struggling for their land/rights - the most prominent one is the national Aboriginal Tent Embassy erected in Canberra.

[edit] Queer Space

This campaign began some years before the SRC creation of a sexuality officer position - but in 1998 the first temporary Queer Space had been agreed to in negotiations with the campus' first elected Sexuality Officer, the Vice Chancellor and the UniCentre General Manager. It was opened in 1999. The space was later closed and relocated as a result of the demolition of the UniBar building. The new site was deemed inappropriate by the Allsorts Queer Collective (the autonomous collective representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, transgender and/or queer students on campus) and a new campaign was launched by Media Officer Annaleise Constable during 2004-5. This campaign progressed from collecting signatures in petitions to an occupation of University space - queer students claimed a room as a symbollic Queer Space and refused to leave that room until their demands for a new, and more appropriate, queer space were met.^[1] In 2005 the Faculty of Arts offered Allsorts space on the ground floor of Bld 19 to serve as the new Queer Space.

[edit] The Dream Team

The WUSA executive and council elected in 1996 for the 1997 term included a number of prominent left-wing student activists who have since become notable community leaders and policy makers. Under the leadership of Carol Berry, who served as President, the "Dream Team" ran for election on an explicitly anarchist-left platform, beating the Labor students and Democratic Socialist Party activists who contested them with a staggering 85% of the primary vote. The mandate of their victory ensured an explosion of student activist activity on campus, and a record number of campaigns run by WUSA. The radicalism of the University of Wollongong student body under Berry's Presidency had a national political reputation, with the result that the WUSA executive came under the scrutiny of "spooks" (Australian secret service agents) posted to campus to monitor their activities.

The activists of the Dream Team have since pursued influential positions in Australian public life. Even "the guy who booked the bands" for WUSA has been successful: Phil Hutcheon, the Activities Officer of the 1997 WUSA Executive, is now the Vice President and London CEO of Modular Recordings, the label that broke Wolfmother.

[edit] Office Bearers for 2007

The WUSA Council consists of 15 Office Bearers (Global Solidarity Officer was added in 2006) and 14 General Representatives, all elected in annual elections (with the exception of the Indigenous Students' Representative, who is elected by the autonomous Indigenous Collective).

In the 2006 WUSA elections, the broad-left/activist ticket GRASSROOTS won a comfortable majority on the WUSA Council, holding most of the Office Bearer positions and several General Represenative positions,^[2] while the presidency was won by the Labor Right ticket.

WUSA Office Bearers
Position	Name	Ticket
President	Elizabeth Larbalestier	SCORE
Honorary Secretary	Jenna Fletcher	GRASSROOTS
Honorary Treasurer	Callum Blanchard	GRASSROOTS
Education Campaigns Coordinator	Nick Rouen	IGNITE
Events Coordinator	Simon Frew	GRASSROOTS
Media Coordinator	Adam Knobel	GRASSROOTS
Welfare Coordinator	Carla Morgan	GRASSROOTS
Environment Representative	Nick Dugonics	GRASSROOTS
External Students Representative	Nathan Marshall	GRASSROOTS
Disabilities Representative	Ryan Gordon	GRASSROOTS
Indigenous Representative	Llayne Brown	N/A
International Students Representative	Anthony Strik	INDEPENDENT
Queer Representative	Nikki Low	GRASSROOTS
Women's Representative	Cassandra Hay	GRASSROOTS
Global Solidarity Officer	Matt Barden	GRASSROOTS

[edit] Past Presidents

1994 Peter Knox

1995 Jo Kowalczyk

1996 Laura Wilson

1997 Carol Berry

1998 Erin Cahill

1999 Kane Gleeson

2000 Nardine Toney

2001 John Finlayson

2002 Amanda Craig

2003 Michael Szafraniec

2004 Michael Szafraniec (resigned on suspicion of corruption)/Ben Jones (elected May '04 by WUSA Constitution as runner-up of previous election)

2005 Ben Coughlin

2006 Jess Moore

2007 Elizabeth Larbalestier

Picture: Ken Robinson - Illawarra Mercury.

Wollongong University Students' Representative Council President Kane Gleeson (centre right) argues with controversial right-wing columnist and graduation speaker Piers Akerman (centre left). SRC member Simon Zulian (far left) holds the Students' Representative Council banner while Deputy Vice-Chancellor Peter Robinson (far right) looks on. May 1999.

[edit] See also

Small + Regionals

Student unions of Australia
National: National Union of Students of Australia
Universities: ANU | Adelaide | Ballarat | Bendigo | Canberra | Charles Darwin | Curtin | Edith Cowan | Flinders | Griffith | James Cook | La Trobe | Macquarie | Melbourne | Monash (Caulfield campus) | Monash (Clayton campus) | Murdoch | New England | New South Wales | Newcastle | Queensland | QUT | RMIT | South Australia | Southern Cross (Coffs Harbour campus) | Southern Cross (Lismore campus) | Southern Queensland | Sunshine Coast | Swinburne | Sydney | Tasmania (Hobart campus) | Tasmania (Launceston campus) | UTS | Victoria | Western Australia | Western Sydney | Wollongong
Current Factions: Australian Liberal Students Federation | Grassroots Left | Independents | National Labor Students | National Liaison Committee | Socialist Alternative | Student Unity
Former Factions: Australian Labor Students | Left Alliance | Love and Rage | National Broad Left | National Organisation of Labor Students | Non-Aligned Left | Small + Regionals

[edit] Notes