October 2020

By the end of October 2020 I had completed the bulk of a manuscript called 50 Years of Building Advocacy: The Evolution of Professional Staffing at a Sydney University Student Union, 1970 to 2020. It was produced under a final tranche of research employment with the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association, where I was employed for almost two decades. Whilst I was researching and writing about that student representative world I was also an active student representative at the University of New England. The writing was inevitably influenced by those circumstances, which is why this manuscript finds a place here. The original document has been edited lightly, as much as I was tempted to go in and do much more, and a July 2022 preface and epilogue have been added. The additions make a case for the largely overlooked and misunderstood importance of quality and supported democratic student representation, including because of its contribution to wider civil society and overall democratic culture. Included are some concrete suggestions around how national policy settings might be refreshed to help reinvigorate that important democratic world.