The 1970s was a turbulent decade for student politics and indeed for life in general in the UK. It culminated in the country electing its first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in 1979. However, it was two years earlier that the student movement elected its first female figurehead. Sue Slipman was not only NUS’ first female president, but also its leader during one of the most significant periods of transition in the movement’s history.
Born in 1949 to a working-class family in Brixton, south London, Sue Slipman has journeyed from modest beginnings to fulfil a truly unique career. Now the Director of the NHS Confederation Foundation Trust Network, she has been at the pinnacle of a diverse range of organisations over the years, including the National Council for One Parent Families, the Gas Consumers Council and National Lottery operator Camelot, with every position underpinned by her passion for delivering social justice. However, none of this would have been possible had she not taken the decision in the mid-1970s to engage with student politics.
After studying English at the University of Wales in Lampeter, Slipman took a postgraduate course at the University of Leeds, from where she was elected NUS vice president in 1974. She swiftly gathered momentum within the organisation, moving on to become deputy president to Charles Clarke in 1975 and then the first female full-time officer as national secretary in 1976. The following year, she set her sights one step higher, running for president as a member of the Communist Party on the Broad Left ticket – her campaign was successful, and in 1977 she was elected the first female president in NUS history.
Slipman sees her election as a significant moment for the student movement. “In the whole history of the union since it being set up in 1922, being the first woman was clearly going to attract a lot of media attention, and it did,” she says. “Certainly student politics had been in the spotlight for some time, particularly given what was happening in the early 1970s in terms of where students lined up with areas of unrest and with unions in general. I think being the first woman highlighted that.”
During her presidency, Slipman was hailed for her role in negotiating with the Labour Government on proposals to change the system of students’ union financing. Unfortunately, her carefully crafted compromise deal was rendered redundant by the election of the Thatcher Government in 1979, which came as a tough blow.
Today, education funding is at the pinnacle of the modern NUS agenda. So what advice would a woman of Sue Slipman’s experience offer today’s movement? “I really do not want to preach to this generation of student leaders about what they should do, but it seems to me that they have to be into the politics of mitigating the worst things that might happen,” she says. “The realities are the realities, and I think it is likely that students will be charged more for their courses. It is about how you manage loans and paybacks, whether you do it through a graduate tax, all of those issues on the agenda – which hopefully can protect as much access to education as we can maintain and then really focus on those who would otherwise be excluded.”