Between 1937 and 1984 the National Union of Australian University Students (renamed the Australian Union of Students in 1970) was the national representative body for students in Australian universities and colleges. It organised national Congresses, debating competitions, drama festivals, and conferences of student editors. Nationally and locally, it supported fundraising by organisations like Abschol and the World University Service. It sent delegations to meetings of the International Student Conference, the International Union of Students, and regional seminars. It created opportunities for student travel to China, India and many other countries.

Following its 1970 restructuring as AUS to incorporate the Colleges of Advanced Education, technical institutes and teachers’ colleges, the Union’s character changed. Its annual conferences were much larger, it was much more actively engaged in issues like Indigenous land rights, women’s issues and gay rights, its Travel Service expanded massively, and its Friendly Society provided insurance for students and on-campus pharmacies.

 

NUAUS/AUS served students and their welfare.

Since 2018, a group of former officers of the Union has raised around $150,000 to support the cataloguing of the NUAUS/AUS archives, now National Library of Australia MS. 2412. This collection of over 1000 boxes of papers is a vital historical resource. It needs to be used by academics and students as they research the history of education policy in Australia and the many national and international issues that the Union confronted during it 47 years of existence. The group now has a website at natstudaustralia.org and we invite you to visit it and take a trip down memory lane.

Did you take part in an NUAUS drama festival or debating contest? Did you attend the annual Congress, or one of the annual conferences the Union ran for overseas students, for students in a specific Faculty, for editors of student newspapers, or on aboriginal education? Were you part of an overseas delegation? Did you travel through the Union’s travel service (STA etc.)? Were you involved in the 1970s and early 1980s campaigns for education reform, gender equality, Indigenous rights, or gay rights?

If you benefitted from any of the events and activities organised by NUAUS/AUS, whether locally, nationally or internationally, and if you would like to make contact with others who were similarly involved, please send us a message via the Contact page on the website (https://natstudaustralia.org/contact/). We welcome your memories and contributions.

 

Best wishes,

 

Professor Rod Lyall

on behalf of the NUAUS/AUS Archives Committee