Durham Students' Union, operating as Durham SU, is the students' union of Durham University in Durham, England. It is an organisation, originally set up as the Durham Colleges Students’ Representative Council in 1899 and renamed in 1969, with the intention of representing and providing welfare and services for the students of the University of Durham.
Location
The Students' Union occupies and manages Dunelm House, a university-owned building in the centre of Durham where a wide variety of student activities take place. Designed by Architects Co-Partnership, the Brutalist, angular concrete building was completed in 1966 under the supervision of architect Sir Ove Arup, whose Kingsgate Bridge, adjacent, opened two years earlier. Built into the steeply sloping bank of the River Wear, Dunelm House is notable internally for the fact that the main staircase linking all five levels of the building runs in an entirely straight line. This was intended by the building's architects to create the feeling of an interior street.
In 1968 Dunelm House won a Civic Trust award, and a RIBA award in 1987, though it has been described by students as "The ugliest building in Durham". On the other hand, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the noted architecture historian, considered the building, "Brutalist by tradition but not brutal to the landscape ... the elements, though bold, [are] sensitively composed." Durham City Council's Local Plan notes that the "powerful" building, together with Kingsgate Bridge, "provides an exhilarating pedestrian route ... out into open space over the river gorge".
Structure and Decision Making
Durham SU is a registered charity. The Student's Union is ran by the sabbatical student officers, a board of trustee's and a student assembly.
The sabbatical student officers are elected by Durham Student's Union membership and they lead the political direction of the Union. For the 2023/24 Academic year, the sabbatical student officers are: Dan Lonsdale, President Will Brown, UG Academic Officer Freddy Fossey-Warren, PG Academic Officer Deborah Acheampong, Welfare and Liberation Officer Skye Carroll, Opportunities Officer
The board of trustees is the governing body of the Union, it ensures it continues to meet its aims and operates within to boundaries of charity law. The board of trustees consists of 4 lay trustees, the 5 sabbatical student officers, and an additional 4 elected student trustees.
Assembly holds the sabbatical student officers to account, and also helps to shape the policy of the Union. Assembly consists of student officers, representatives of Junior Common Rooms from each Durham College, and representatives from Durham SU associations.
Durham SU is also supported by a team of paid staff.
Services
The Durham SU acts an umbrella organisation for approximately 200 student clubs and organisations, which span academic, arts, culture and faith, hobbies and games, outdoors, politics, law and music interests. It also acts as am umbrella organisation for eight 'associations', which exist to allow for those who self-define into any of the associations to campaign on issues that effect their student experience, as well as to provide them with a safe space to discuss their problems.
It also runs the Kingsgate Bar and Café within the Dunelm House building. DurhamSU also provides room booking services at Dunelm House, used by both student groups, external groups, and the wider university. It also organises the Fresher's Fair at the start of the academic year and runs campaigns and lobbies for student interests with the university and wider community.
DUCK (Durham University Charities Committee) is the fundraising arm of the DSU charitable organisation. DUCK runs events on a university and college level, including expeditions (fundraising to travel abroad), challenges (extreme events), endurance challenges, RAG raids (mass fundraising on city streets) and general events.
Relation to colleges
Durham University is a collegiate university and therefore the role of the central students' union is different from most other universities. Each of Durham's colleges has its own student representative body, known in most colleges as the Junior Common Room, which provides services and organises events within the college; while many decisions within the central Students' Union are made with the involvement of JCR SU Representatives. However, some of the JCRs have opted to disaffiliate from the students' union - including University College and Hild Bede - following the controversial 2020 officer and trustee elections.