Student activism has been a defining feature of university life for as long as there have been universities. Young, idealistic, energetic and caught in the throes of an exciting ye...

Inherent to the objective of student unionism is the furthering of member interests. Historically and presently, higher education and university administration policy have been see...

When most people think of contemporary student activism, they think of students campaigning around federal education policy or local campus issues. Student environmentalism or stud...

In 1971, when the South African Springboks toured Australia and played at Manuka Oval in Canberra, Judy Turner was on of 49 people arrested protesting against South Africa’s aparth...

At the 2017 December Arts and Social Science Graduation Ceremony, Geraldine Fela – a dedicated education and refugee activist – delivered the following graduation address. Containi...

Beneath the shade of large arch’s awnings there is a rectangular window through which you can see out onto rubble. ‘A Bold New Campus’ is how a placard below the window describes i...

The history of Canberra can be cut many ways. It is, for all intents and purposes, a history of a semi-alpine valley imposed with the burden of Capitol – scoured clean and designed...

We’ve left the university I walked out wearing my red flag around my shoulders You left wearing a beret, chanting: ‘The workers, united, will never be defeated’   We left As t...

Professor John Buchanan is the Head of the Discipline of Business Analytics at the University of Sydney Business School. From 1979-1984, he was an undergraduate student of History ...

I picked up a banner for the first time and joined the fight against fee deregulation as a second-year student in 2014. The experience of being part of a vibrant and winning campai...

Action on higher education policy is a core aspect of activism at universities. While this work is important and necessary, something is fundamentally missing from our demands and ...

A few messages later and there’s Ten or twenty of us in a park near Braddon, armed with banners and badges, a megaphone, desperation and rage. We’ve tried everything else years in ...

The refugee campaign in Australia has been one of the most visible and tenacious movements of social activism of the last four of five years. In it, many thousands of people have f...

“Full-time troublemakers”. This is how Chris Swinbank describes student activsts he camepaigned with during his time at the ANU from 1968-1971. After reading about Chris and the an...

My earliest memory of parental-encouraged activism is when, at the age of ten my mum told me to go harass the Premier of Queensland. To give context, my mum was involved in the cam...

Chris Swinbank: Involved in anti-apartheid activism, anti-Vietnam War activism and student support for the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, late 1960s-early 1970s Oh I...

– by  Roxley Foley,  introduction by  Odette Shenfield At the 2015 National Union of Students National Confernece, the Labor Right faction (Student Unity) submitted a motion suppor...

This work is inspired by the generations of female activists in the ANU community. All the faces are based on images of act...

I have often wondered what it would have been like to be an Australian feminist in the 1970s. To be frank, I have always thought it would have been wildly fun and, accordingly, hav...

When I was a child, my parents were part of a group called of Friends of South West Rocks. They, along with a few other local greenies, were outraged when the Council approved a de...

Like many students, I came to university hoping to find a way to make the world a more just and sustainable place. After a few environmental science courses that explored the cause...

Rick Kuhn is an Honorary Associate Professor in Sociology at the ANU. Since his first appointment at ANU in 1987, he has researched and taught in political economy, the history of ...

–  Judy Kuo and Tom Swann  in interview with  Odette Shenfield When Fossil Free ANU began in 2011, it was one of the first fossil fuel divestment campaigns in the world. At the tim...

SOS is Students of Sustainability, a unique, social and environmental justice gathering held every July by the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN). It started in 1991, in...

For over fifty years, the collective voices of student activists have echoed up from Australian universities to our policy makers. From the Civil Rights movement and the 1965 Freed...