| Full name | University of Wollongong Undergraduate Students' Association |
|---|---|
| Native name | Student Control of Student Affairs! |
| Founded | 1960s |
| Country | Australia |
| Affiliation | National Union of Students |
| Office location | Northfields Avenue, University of Wollongong |
| Website | http://wusa.uow.edu.au/ |
The University of Wollongong Undergraduate Students' Association (known as WUSA, and its governing body the WUSA Council) is the peak undergraduate student representative organisation at the University of Wollongong.
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WUSA is the UOW Student Union and as such works to fight for student interests on campus and in the broader community, keeping both the University administration and Australian governments accountable when it comes to issues affecting students. WUSA also provides advocacy and welfare services for students on campus.
WUSA is a grassroots organisation, made up of a number of issues-based student collectives. These include education, queer rights, women's rights, an anti-racism collective, a student media collective, and the environment collective. WUSA also publishes the UOW student magazine Tertangala.
WUSA is affiliated to the National Union of Students (Australia) and has participated in national campaigns including the fight against upfront course fees, Voluntary Student Unionism, and the struggle to reinstate free Higher Education in Australia. WUSA has also called upon the national body and other student organistaions to support its local causes in the past. In a city like Wollongong, notorious for pollution and other heavy industry-related health problems, WUSA has always been at the forefront of campus environmentalism in Australia. This has particularly been the case as Climate Change has become an increasingly important political issue to students.
The sister student organisation for WUSA is the Newcastle University Students' Association.
Over more than 34 years, WUSA has co-ordinated many student protests and political campaigns. In 1995, 2000 University of Wollongong students occupied the campus Administration building to protest the introduction of degree fees. In 1997 students and SRC representatives again participated in an occupation, this time at the University of Technology Sydney in a successful campaign to prevent the introduction of full fee degrees at that institution. WUSA students and staff also participated in the campaign to prevent the introduction of full fee degrees at the University of Western Sydney in 1998.
The University of Wollongong student body has long held the reputation of being one of "the most left-wing campuses in the country". It is reported that the flag of the Australian Communist Party was flown on the University's Foundation Day.
The WUSA Council elected for the 1997 term included a number of left-wing student activists, who later became notable community leaders and policy makers. With Carol Berry serving as WUSA President, the "Dream Team" ran for election on an anarchist-left platform, defeating their opponents the Labor students and Democratic Socialist Party activists with 85% of the primary vote. The mandate of their victory ensured an explosion of student activism on campus and a record number of campaigns run by WUSA. The radicalism of the University of Wollongong student body in 1997 had a national political reputation, with the result that the WUSA executive came under the scrutiny of Australian secret service agents posted to campus to monitor their activities.
During 1999, UOW and other NSW students stormed NSW Liberal Party Head Quarters on a National Day of Action called by the National Union of Students and demanded an end to proposed VSU legislation. The legislation was withdrawn, but introduced again in 2006 when the Coalition Government secured the support of Family First Senator Steve Fielding in the Australian Senate.
In protest against the axing of the Aboriginal Health Course, the SRC and the Education Action Collective convened and ran a campaign with local aboriginal, academic and student support, involving frequent protests and NUS NSW state-wide support. This resulted in the University Council overturning the Vice Chancellor's decision to drop the course. The Vice-Chancellor subsequently agreed to funding for a new Aboriginal Education Centre, which now overlooks the McKinnon lawn, the former site of the Tent Faculty. The term "Tent Faculty" was chosen as a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Aboriginal tent embassies present across Australia, wherever indigenous people are struggling for the recognition of their rights - the most prominent being the national Aboriginal Tent Embassy erected in Canberra.
In 2006 the WUSA President, Jess Moore, received a phone call from police, informing her that she was under investigation for her activism, on campus, around anti-war/Palestinian self-determination campaigns. The investigation made national[1] and international news.[2] The 2006 WUSA Council was noted for the increase in anti-Howard Government student activism on campus, as well as being involved in organising large rallies to protest against the 2006 Lebanon War. .