[Voiceover] The Cambridge University Student's Union,
or CUSU, is one of the least understood
organizations in the whole of the University.
Many don't know what it does
and when people do hear about CUSU,
it is usually for its fiery presidential elections
and for memes of former president
Amatey Doku.
But what does CUSU actually do?
Do they serve a purpose?
I went to Cambridge to found out,
once and for all,
what CUSU is, and what it does.
It took me a while to find CUSU,
because it was located right next to a
grubby-looking car park on 17 Mill Lane.
- Hi - Hiya
- I'm Daisy, I'm the CUSU president,
welcome in!
[Voiceover] It didn't even have a proper sign
outside the building.
I was anxious to see what lay inside.
So Daisy, with all due respect,
a lot of people have been saying that CUSU's
a bit of a useless organisation,
that it's just full of people who like to pretend
to be important, so I guess my first question is
what does CUSU do?
Ron, thank you so much
for asking that question.
As President, in my presidential capacity,
that is my favorite question.
If students can see what exactly it is
that we do day-to-day here,
they're not going to think that
the Student Union is 'Buzzword Centrale'
they're going to understand, day-to-day
exactly what it is that we do.
Right, so... what do you do?
We do so many things, Ron!
[Voiceover] Daisy seemed like a typical politician,
and didn't give me straight answers
I decided just to ask her to show
me around CUSU.
- Here we are.
This is our office, this is the hub,
the core, the beating heart
of our organization.
This is the Graduate Union,
and this is our lounge,
I spend a lot of time in here.
I THINK about the big questions:
Engagement.
Representation.
Engagement.
Representation. Representation. Representation.
Engagement.
[Voiceover] It was obvious that the president
loved her buzzwords.
To get a better understanding of CUSU,
I needed to get away from her
and talk to some of the other officers.
- Hi I'm Olivia, the CUSU Access officer.
- So what's your role?
- My role is ensure that any student,
regardless of background,
considers going to university,
and I run a really cool project
called the Shadowing scheme that any
Cambridge student can get involved with.
Prospective students come to Cambridge
for three days to see what student life is really like.
- I'm Micha, I'm the CUSU/GU
Welfare and Rights Officer,
and I work on issues related
to student mental health and well-being.
I'm the organizer of the sexual health scheme
and also the lead officer of the
Student Advice Service,
which is located just in our lounge
- So the Students' Unions' Advice Service,
or SUAS, is a service that exists
for all Cambridge University students,
that's undergraduate and graduate students
from all 31 Colleges.
We're free, confidential, and independent,
and we can help students
with pretty much any issue.
[Voiceover] Without Daisy around,
I started to understand a bit more about
all the work that CUSU does.
For example, it turns out that CUSU is
partially made up of six ex-student
sabbatical officers, who each
have a certain role, but this office
and this president intrigued me somewhat.
It was unlike any office I've ever seen before.
I needed to find out more.
- What are your names and what do you do?
- I'm Lola, I'm the CUSU Women's officer,
and my job is basically to represent all
self-defining women and non-binary
students across the University, and run
political campaigns on issues that affect them.
One of the things I'm really
excited about working on this year
is the new roll-out of the University-wide
sexual assault procedure,
which is the first of its kind in Cambridge.
- I'm Florence, I'm the Disabled Students' Officer,
and I'm here for all
self-defining disabled students in the University,
which includes those with
mental health difficulties.
One of my big priorities this year is
physical accessibility, so making sure Cambridge's
students can actually get into its
buildings and the facilities.
Me and Lola are heads of two of
Cambridge's five liberation groups
and you can find us here at CUSU
in Liberation Corner.
- Those five liberation groups are
the Women's campaign,
the Disabled Students' campaign,
the International Students' campaign,
the BME campaign, and
the LGBT+ campaign.
- I'm Martha and I'm the Education officer.
This means I'm responsible for ensuring
that academic life at Cambridge reflects
the needs of students.
I do this by sitting on over 25 committees,
I support faculty reps, and I also run
the Student-Led Teaching Awards.
On top of this, I campaign against
national policies on fees and the
marketisation of higher education.
- So over the course of the day,
I started to realize that
actually, you know, actually
CUSU does a lot.
-Yeah I think we do, we're basically
six full-time officers working hard
to try and make student life better
and better. We want people
to understand what CUSU has to offer,
whether that's support from a liberation group,
the services we offer on reception
like printing, binding, and bike gear,
or just support from our
Student Union's Advice Service.
We want people to engage with CUSU,
whether it is accessing our services,
bringing us a complaint about university life
or even a campaign idea.
[Voiceover] As I listened to Martha speak,
it dawned on me that maybe,
just maybe, we were all
underestimating CUSU.
As I looked around the
hard-working faces of these officers,
watched over by the warm gaze
of Amatey Doku,
I started to realise:
CUSU was more than just a Student's Union,
it was a community that was
fully committed to the well-being
of every student at the University.
Somebody once told me
that not all heroes wear capes.
I never really understood what
that meant...
until now.