Rebecca Chan and Zoe Blah investigate EUSA's role around campus and find a layer of mystery surrounding its cavernous innards.

EUSA has been in the wars recently, with the controversies of its inner workings making headlines and stirring up debate.

But the battle between EUSA and the students it represents has been raging, quietly, for far longer than the past few weeks. There seems to be a certain amount of mystery surrounding the reasons for this antagonistic relationship, which seemingly develops in students as soon as they matriculate. There always seems to be somebody available to criticise the association for being vaguely insufficient in some way or another, but focused criticisms are few and far between outside of the political groups existent around campus.

We hear the loud opinions of the vocal minority, who feel strongly one way or another, but the majority of students, who are not directly involved in their students’ union, remain silent. Curious to find out what the general feeling amongst students actually was, rather than relying on what we’d heard from the handful of these vocal individuals who seem to have a monopoly on public opinion, we decided to spend a day at Teviot, Potterow and KB House to speak to ordinary students about their opinions.

We started with the basics: What do you think of EUSA? The responses ranged from “I think they’re doing a good job but I don’t really know what they’re doing” to “EUSA, they’re the ones that run the shop, right? It’s too expensive.”

Often, there was a slightly panicked look on the faces of those we approached when we asked about their opinions on EUSA, many double-checking that EUSA is in fact the students’ union. Even those sitting in EUSA-run buildings, surrounded by their marketing posters, seemed unaware of what EUSA actually is, what they do and the services they offer. “I don’t see how they do anything for me personally. Here in King’s, I feel that there’s absolutely nothing done,” remarked Huw Richards, a fourth year zoologist. A student from the vet school responded similarly, noting that students out on the Easter Bush campus felt excluded from EUSA activity.

This speaks volumes about the fractured communication between EUSA and the students it represents. It isn’t because the association isn’t trying, many students were willing to admit, but for some reason their efforts at making contact seem to continuously fall flat.

“The biggest problem is that no one knows what they do”, said student Caitilin Hogg. “They could make more of an effort to tell you”. Such a comment seems likely to send the association’s communications team into a frenzy – but what of the email?! The monthly email carefully crafted and distributed into the inbox of every Edinburgh student? “The email is really unattractive to actually read”, said student Jenny Heyward, explaining that it wasn’t the matter that was uninteresting, but the medium.

“They do lump all the information together,” added third year linguist Melissa Geere, “they say how they’re campaigning against fees in the same email as they announce who’s playing at Potterrow.” This seemed to be the general consensus amongst those interviewed, many admitting that they receive EUSA’s email newsletters, but rarely read all if any of the content. Claire Thompson, a Masters student in EU Studies, suggested that this was because of the format of the emails. “They’re all in block text and there’s no colour, there’s no visual side to it at all, so no one’s interested.”

However, many admitted that even if EUSA did email more regularly with interactive (and colourful) messages, the emails would probably still sit, unread, in their inboxes.

This then poses the question: Should the responsibility rest completely on EUSA’s shoulders? What more can they do to interact with the university’s 24,000 students?

Tom Smith, a PhD student, admitted that his lack of knowledge about EUSA was not simply down to their lack of communication, saying that it was “probably [his] responsibility as much as theirs”, whilst adding that he didn’t “feel a direct connection” with EUSA. Perhaps it is down to students themselves to find out about the union they are a part of, but the disconnect between the union and the students is something that EUSA can feasibly address.

The lack of personal contact is, arguably, conducive to a lack of a sense of personal responsibility, which directly determines how involved a student is in the union. “If you had a point of contact with EUSA that was much more localised,” suggests Melissa Geere, “a welfare rep or something, who you could meet, and who would email you to tell you that your vote was needed on an issue...I would go and vote.”

Will Kemp, alumni, took a similar stance, commenting that EUSA “don’t go about things on an individual basis, talking to students, talking to their friends, seeing what actually needs fixing.” This lack of vital engagement on a one-to-one basis, he argued, has led to widespread apathy across the student body.

Such apathy, summarised in a sentence by third year linguist Alastair McCloud in his comment of EUSA providing “assorted sandwiches, if nothing else”, often spills over into full-blown cynicism, particularly with regards to the EUSA elections.

“They spend all this time campaigning and then you never hear anything about it ever again, the person disappears. They’re in your face 24/7 for about four weeks and then as soon as they’re voted in you just never see them again”, said a fifth year mechanical engineering student. Claire Thompson agreed, commenting that “Really the only time EUSA seems visible and active is during election time.”

Those with a keen eye on last year’s elections will remember RON the horse, a mascot for the RON (re-open nominations) option on the ballot forms, which acts as a means of registering dissatisfaction with the nominated candidates whilst still being counted as a voter. Will Kemp, who ran the RON campaign, explained the motivation behind it being that “nobody was trying... it was an easy opening to ridicule it.” The elections are no longer about electing the person who will do the best job for students, but are “about getting themselves elected,” he continued. “EUSA as an institution should be used as a tool, not an end in its own right.”

A student rep, wishing to remain anonymous, felt that “a lot of the policy currently passed is mostly for the gratification of the person passing it… it’s just grandstanding, it’s people trying to make themselves look good.” This, he felt, was off-putting for any new members of Student Council, adding that “there’s certain political groups within EUSA that are almost like a club behind one person, and if you don’t fit with that one person’s views then basically you don’t get to participate.”

“There’s a very low amount of people voting at the elections” said third year social anthropologist Carla Sayer. “The ones that do vote are voting for their friends, or owe someone a favour or something, that’s why we have joke candidates like RON... people are disenchanted by it all.” A Masters’ student said “I think there’s a general sentiment that EUSA is a bit elitist and that maybe reflects the general mistrust of people who are involved in politics in general”.

It wasn’t all disenchantment and cynicism, however, with students overwhelmingly acknowledging the support that EUSA does offer. Madeleine Laulund said she felt that the association’s strengths were most apparent in “helping with societies”, whilst second year linguist Hannah Spiers expressed her gratitude for their work, saying “When I’ve gone in for help before I’ve always come out with what I’ve needed.”

Perhaps the seemingly widespread anti-EUSA sentiment is not as far reaching as we had previously imagined. “I think quite a lot of the time people are very harsh on them,” commented Zoe Inkster.

The work put in by sabbatical officers, who notoriously get the roughest deal in terms of being preemptively slated by students, was also recognised, with a first year linguist saying, “It definitely doesn’t look bad on a CV, but I think it’s a lot of effort to be in charge of things, so I don’t think it’s entirely to make their CV look good.”

This support aside, there was an engulfing, undeniable sense of apathy amongst the students we spoke to. However, it doesn’t seem as though this is because students are inherently apathetic. On the contrary, it seemed that the majority of students we interviewed wanted to feel positively about EUSA, but simply didn’t know enough to do so. Again and again, students admitted that they were sure EUSA does a lot of productive work but felt that they had no idea what that work was.

What tended to continually resurface was the desire for more personal, on-the-ground interaction between EUSA and the student body. What was generally agreed was that EUSA exists as an entity separate to the students it represents, students who are, ambiguously, aware of its function yet essentially in the dark about what it’s actually doing. Until they “come down from the clouds a bit”, as one former society treasurer remarked, it seems as though they will continue to be greeted with sweeping apathy, punctuated by inexplicable vague expressions of discontent.