You may have a year.
Perhaps slightly less by the time induction is over, committees restart, priorities are agreed, and the university calendar begins to accelerate. For incoming student officers, the year ahead will feel full of possibility. Returning officers already know how quickly it moves. So, this is a useful moment to ask: What impact do you want to make? Not simply which meetings you will attend, which campaigns you will run, or how visible you will be. What do you hope will change? Who do you most want to benefit? And what might change for the better as a result of your work?
These questions shaped our fireside conversation with incoming and continuing student sport, wellbeing and activity officers at this year’s BUCS Conference. We came to the conversation from different perspectives. One of us leads a university and is Chair of BUCS. Two of us have served as students’ union sports officers and sit on that Board as student directors and trustees. We have experienced institutional leadership from different sides of the table, though all of us see the transformational power of sport.
Our shared reflection is simple: student officers often have more opportunity to influence their institutions than they realise. But influence does not come automatically with a title, a mandate, or a seat at the table. Rather, it is something you must build.
Here are some of the things we have learned that may help.
Learn the institution you want to change
One of the pressures of becoming a student officer is the feeling that you need to make an immediate impact - but some of the most valuable work you can do early in your term is to understand how your institution actually works. Read the strategy, learn how decisions are made, understand what the governing body, Vice-Chancellor and executive team are trying to achieve - and what is making that difficult. Learn when budgets are agreed, when strategies are reviewed, and where an idea needs to go before it can become a decision.
This is not about becoming ‘institutionalised’ or less willing to challenge. Rather, it is about becoming more effective. Some student officers approach their term with the view that it is always the union versus the institution, but it is not that straightforward. University leaders are often balancing student success, retention, wellbeing, graduate outcomes, recruitment, regulation, equality and inclusion, reputation, and financial sustainability at the same time. Understanding those pressures helps you connect your case for change to outcomes the institution is already trying to deliver.
Instead of beginning with: “We need more money for sport,” you might say: “We have an opportunity to improve belonging and wellbeing among students who are currently least connected to university life. Here is what students are telling us, and here is what we could do.” The issue has not changed - but the conversation has.
Aim to influence before the answer is decided
Student officers now sit in spaces that earlier generations fought hard to enter: boards, committees, executive meetings, and strategy discussions. That access matters enormously, but there is a difference between being consulted and being influential. Too often, students are asked for a view when the basic shape of a decision has already been settled.
The greater opportunity is to get involved while the problem is still being understood, the evidence interpreted, and the options remain genuinely open. The goal is not simply for senior leaders to be willing to hear from student officers. It is for them to think: ‘We should hear from the student officers before we decide.’
Incoming officers may need to spend time building that trust. Returning officers can ask where their experience now allows them to move further upstream.
Turn student experience into insight people can act on
As a student officer, you have access to something senior leaders need but cannot easily replicate: the lived experience of students. You may hear where frustration is building before it appears in a formal survey, or speak with students who never attend university forums. You can often see the gap between an institution’s intent and what students actually experience, which is extraordinarily valuable.
The skill is learning how to translate what you hear into something people can act on. The strongest case will often combine three things: a human story, credible evidence, and a practical proposition. For example, participation data identifies that commuter students engage less in sport, student feedback explains why (travel costs and timing barriers), and this can lead to a clear recommendation such as increasing lunchtime provision. You do not need to arrive with answers every time - but helping the institution ask better questions is itself a form of leadership.
A simple way to prepare your case in these situations is to focus on four Ps:
- Purpose: What outcome are we trying to achieve, and why does it matter now?
- Proof: What are students telling us? What does other evidence show? Who is most affected?
- Proposition: What could realistically change?
- Partnership: Who needs to be involved, and what role can students play in making the solution work?
Listen hardest for the voices heard least
One of the most difficult parts of being a student officer is being expected to represent a student body containing thousands of different experiences, especially when the loudest voices are not always the most representative. The students most likely to attend forums, complete surveys, or contact elected officers may not be those experiencing the greatest barriers. So keep asking: whose voice does the institution hear least? That may include commuter students, disabled students, international students, mature learners, students with caring responsibilities, those working substantial hours alongside their studies or people who never join the traditional structures of university life.
This matters for every student officer, including those working in sport, activity, and wellbeing. The greatest opportunity for university sport may not lie only with students who already take part, so always ask who you are not reaching, and what difference participation could make to them. Representation here matters: if you want to appeal to a more diverse audience of students, having their demographic represented on councils and executives is important.
A Sports Officer’s impact is rarely measured by what they deliver alone, but by the people they empower. Club committees, captains and student leaders are the bridge between you and thousands of students across different sports and communities. They bring your messages to life, create momentum within their clubs, and help drive change in ways that one person never could. Investing in their development, confidence and leadership creates a legacy that continues long after your own term has ended.
Do not assume a ‘no’ ends the conversation
You will not win every argument. Nor should success be measured by whether senior leaders agree with you on everything. Sometimes a ‘no’ means genuine disagreement. Sometimes it means not yet; not in that form; not within the current budget; or not without stronger evidence.
One of the most useful questions you can ask is: ‘what would need to be true for the answer to become yes?’ The response may reveal whether the real barrier is evidence, timing, cost, ownership, or something else entirely. It may tell you that the idea needs to change, or it may tell you to keep making the case - this is why relationships really matter.
Relationships, relationships, relationships
Try not to meet senior leaders only when you need something. Remember that they are people too, not just machines that run your institution. Invite them to important sporting fixtures or award ceremonies, showing them the positive impact of sport, rather than only telling them around a board table.
Do not assume that everyone you engage with will have a built-in passion for sport, instead building relationships that can accommodate both challenge and cooperation. Permanent confrontation is not proof of independence. The strongest relationships are often those where both sides can disagree honestly and still continue working on the problem.
Meeting with senior leaders, especially in the early stages of your term, can feel daunting. Nerves are natural, but remember that you have earned your place in the room - it has been entrusted to you by the students that you represent.
Relationships extend outside the university, too. Some of the biggest opportunities come from knowing where external partnerships and support already exist, and leveraging relationships to increase their impact, rather than seeing your role as operating solely within the university.
Use governance to turn insight into action
For many incoming officers, university governance can appear inaccessible. The language is unfamiliar, the papers are long. It can feel as though everyone else understands a system that nobody has explained to you. But do not be put off - governance is one of the places where student experience can become institutional action.
Learn who has the authority to make the decision, think about cost and risk, speak early to the people who may have to implement what you are proposing, and come prepared with answers to potential questions. ‘The university should do more’ is a common argument to decision-makers, but one that is difficult to act on. ‘We recommend these three actions, led by these areas, within this timeframe’ gives people something to decide.
And when a decision has been made, do not leave without clarity on three things: ‘What happens next? Who owns it? By when?’ Those questions can be the difference between a good conversation and an actual outcome.
Incoming officers: you do not have to know everything on day one
The beginning of your term can be overwhelming. You may feel pressure to have a position on every issue, respond instantly to every request, and prove that electing you was the right decision. But credibility is not built by always having the quickest answer. It comes from preparing well, listening properly, being honest about what you do not yet know and following through on what you say you will do. You have a powerful mandate. Give yourself time to learn how to use it well - you do not have to know everything immediately.
Returning officers: use what you now know
Returning officers have something particularly valuable: institutional memory. You have built relationships, know how decisions really move, and where commitments have stalled. Use that experience to shape decisions, bring stronger evidence, and make it easier for those who follow you to have even greater influence.
Your term will end - the institution will continue
Return throughout the year to the question we began with: what impact do you want to make?
By the end of your term, we hope you can point to more than meetings attended or campaigns delivered. Perhaps student insight enters decisions earlier. Perhaps a group previously overlooked is now better understood. Perhaps an institutional policy, service, or investment has changed. Perhaps the officers who follow you inherit stronger relationships or a clearer route to influence. Reflect on these questions, pass your knowledge onto your successor and empower them - do not let them start from scratch.
Your year in office is short, but your influence does not have to be. Be ambitious enough to challenge your institution, curious enough to understand it, and strategic enough to help change it.
