This year’s NUS national conference drew to a close on Tuesday. Five representatives from Cambridge joined 1,000 delegates from over 600 universities and colleges at Sheffield City Hall to elect a new president and discuss what action to take next year. Amid a climate of growing apathy about the purpose of the NUS, the three-day conference sparked controversy and provoked debate over the future direction of the student movement.

The conference addressed issues such as the rise of ‘lad’ culture at universities and the implementation of the living wage for university staff. Delegates voted to campaign for improved rights for international and postgraduate students as well as an alternative to the Education Maintenance Allowance, which was scrapped in 2010. Yet a recurring theme at the event was concern over the purpose of the NUS and how to present a unified front to represent over 7 million students in the UK.

Outgoing president Liam Burns criticised such navel-gazing in his opening speech, saying that the NUS risks becoming “selfish and totally out of touch", dealing with "abstract arguments not real lives”. Burns himself has been the target of attacks on the movement, including criticism over the low turn out at last year’s Demo 2012, where protestors pelted him with fruit and eggs.

In reaction to the controversial cheers at news of Margaret Thatcher’s death on the second day of the conference, he warned students against appearing disrespectful, saying that “It’s not just that this would reflect extremely badly upon us if we were to show disrespect at this time. There is such a thing as sensitivity.”

New president Toni Pearce is the first leader of the NUS not to have gone to university, having studied at a Further Education college in Cornwall. She hopes to unify the student movement and widen participation to groups such as adult education colleges and prisoners. In her speech she called for a holistic view of “education that enables all of us to reach our potential” with “no more universities versus colleges, no more academic versus vocational”.  She acknowledged divisions in the movement, promising to deliver “an NUS that’s fighting for our members, not fighting with each other”.

There was a mass walk-out during a speech by Socialist Worker Party member Tomas Evans as he stood for the position of Vice President for Higher Education. Over 100 delegates left the room in reaction to accusations that the party has covered up rape allegations.

Other groups such as the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts hosted fringe events after the days’ debates. Fred Cotterill, one of Cambridge’s NUS delegates, worries that these groups risk alienation from the main body of the NUS. He said that “while I do not agree with much of their policy, losing the enthusiasm and skill of NCAFC members would weaken the student movement.”

General apathy with the NUS was symbolised by the joke presidential candidate ‘Inanimate Carbon Rod’, represented by UCL student Sam Gaus. One candidate for the Democratic Procedures Committee acknowledged this issue, wearing a tiger onesie for his speech as “a gimmick to make you remember to vote for me, because that is what student politics has been reduced to”.

Fred Cotterill is positive about the future of the NUS, saying that “much of the policy passed at NUS conference suggests a constructive future for the student movement.” However he agrees that more can be done to engage Cambridge students in the movement’s work. “There's no doubt that Cambridge students in particular are unaware of the NUS and indifferent to the work it does. Over the rest of the year I hope to publicise ways in which the NUS improves the experience of Cambridge students”.