Studying for a degree may be the main reason to attend university but student life extends far beyond the lecture theatre.
Much of what has made Dundee one of the best places in the UK to be a student lies in the activity across campus, from Scotland’s best student union to sports clubs, societies and concerts.
Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA) is home to over 140 different societies ranging from politics to dancing, charities to religion.
It sits at the heart of campus and is central to the life of students while they are in Dundee.
The facilities have changed dramatically over the years, from old-style pub and canteen to the modern complex which includes airy coffee bars, multiple food outlets, meeting rooms and a full scale nightclub.
From this hotbed of social activity have sprung political firebrands, sporting winners and musical stars.
In sport there is opportunity for everyone from the casual player to some of our elite athletes.
Combining studies with sporting excellence has long been a feature of life at the University, having inherited a strong tradition from its forebears.
The legendary Tottenham Hotspur captain Danny Blanchflower once turned out for a University College team, while from 1936 until 1968 the Director of Physical Education at the College, and later university, was Jack Qusklay, boxer, rugby player and sometime trainer to Dundee, Dundee United and Celtic.
Students who have achieved success at the highest sporting levels range from Scotland’s rugby grand slam-winning captain from 1984, David Leslie, who gained his architecture degree at the university, to current athletics star Eilish McColgan, who is among those who have been supported by the elite programme at the university’s Institute for Sports and Exercise.
In music, the students union can claim a significant slice or two of history.
Snow Patrol famously formed after Gary Lightbody and his bandmates met for the first time soon after they started at the university in the early 1990s.
A few years earlier Texas played their very first concert in what was then the Tav Bar in the union.
And Scotland’s biggest music festival, T In The Park, can trace its roots to the students union.
Stuart Clumpas, who went on to form DF Concerts and started the festival, began his career as the entertainments convener in DUSA, regularly putting on bands.
The Union was the place to see Peter Gabriel, The Smiths and many more as they rolled through town.
Student politics has always produced strident voices and hotly debated opinions.
Political leaders have emerged from the university throughout its history.
Lord Robertson and Brian Wilson were among those from the early days of the university who went on to become senior figures in UK and international politics, while there are Dundee alumni representing parties of every stripe in the UK and Scottish parliaments.
The university has also produced stars of the arts world including Turner Prize winner Susan Philipsz, Oscar-nominated film director David Mackenzie, internationally renowned photographer Albert Watson, bestselling illustrator Johanna Basford, sculptor David Mach, and designer Hayley Scanlan.
DUSA President Indrew Urbanaviciute explained the role of the Student Partnership Agreement (SPA) in ensuring that the student experience at Dundee remains the best in Scotland.
She said: “When people look back to their time at the university, the student experience is something they will always reflect on.
“What makes a student experience magical, however, is a very personal thing.
“At DUSA and the university, we do not even try to strictly define it in a short sentence.
“For us the student experience means everything related to their time at university – from academia to activities, representation to welfare, on-campus or off.
“We also realise that safeguarding the experience and making sure it is the one every single student deserves is not a job for just one organisation and cannot be done without the university and DUSA working together.
“Operating in partnership is something we value and is a very unique feature of our working.
“Talking with other student officers up and down the country has made me realise that we are very lucky to have this relationship and for no ‘us and them’ attitude to exist.
“Students sit on committees varying from operational to the highest-level strategic ones, representing the campus perspective.”
Students have been at the centre of the university from its founding in 1881, when Mary Ann Baxter gave funds to establish a college ‘for promoting the education of both sexes and the study of science, literature and the fine arts’.
When the first semester started on October 8 1885 there were 138 day and 235 evening students, of which 75 were women.
Clubs and societies covering a range of topics were soon founded and more than 130 years ago, in November 1886, a Students’ Union was formed because ‘social meetings’ were ‘desirable and valuable’ (the alternative, rather ambiguous, title ‘Eclectic Society’ was not adopted).
By the early 20th century the Union was established in its own building in Ellenbank, with separate doors for male and female students, where it remained until the 1970s.
With the creation of Dundee University in `1967, the Union merged with the Students’ Representative Council in 1969 to form the Dundee University Students’ Association (today’s DUSA).
Along with the Sports Union, DUSA is a focal point for student activities.
