In short

The association/union distinction is trivial, they’re the same for all intents and purposes. The more interesting question is digging at the constitution, or common identity of student associations.

The answer that is best for the common student might be:

An organization that all students belong to, who elect people who spend the fees you pay to try to improve your life through maintaining student spaces, representing you to your college or university, advocating for your interests to government, running clubs systems, and operating other services that will vary by institution.

A working definition of student associations might be:

A usually incorporated and autonomous organization, with democratic control, with leadership elected by, elected from, funded by and providing representational and other services to students of a post-secondary institution.

One can certainly quibble or improve, but this does functionally encapsulate much of what a student association is at its core. There is some variance on what that democratic control, leadership and services might look like, and some institutions may have multiple organizations that meet that definition, but this is a pretty inclusive definition. More work might be needed to find a definition that successfully excludes other organizations. Also, notably, this is a Canadian-specific definition, as student associations elsewhere may not have norms around incorporation, independence, or leadership.

These also only apply to university or college student unions, not related to the Fachhochschulen-type institutions and their student unions common in New Brunswick and Alberta.

Characteristics

To better understand student associations, it is also important to recognise that student associations have a probably unique set of characteristics, though these might be better called characteristic tendencies, as there is a lot of variance in the sector.

These characteristics divide into 6 categories: 1) Mission 2) Interdependency 3) Membership 4) Structure 5) Operation 6) Leadership.

These aren’t binary characteristics, for example, universities could be argued to be “member driven” to serve students and the government to some degree, and some businesses may be more or less multimodal in their service selection.

Mission

Member driven- Decisions are centred around the funders of the work, and centred on their wellbeing

Youth focused- tend to disproprtionately represent younger-than-average people

Perpetual- The organization has a long-run mandate, and does not exist for only a temporary purpose

Interdependence

Autonomous- makes own decisions

Dependent- has a high degree of organizational risk tied to another organization

Membership

Mandatory Membership- members are forced into membership, generally

Dynamic Membership- rapid turnovers, 20%+ per year

Apathetic Membership- A membership that is largely unengaged or unenthused about operations, relative to other organizations

Structure

Formal Organization- Written rules, incorporation, frequent internal codes beyond bylaws

Quasi-Governmental Organization- Operates on a democratic model with democratic traditions and organs/intra-institutions (elected leadership)

Local– While they may join supraunions with overarching administration, associations tend to serve members in narrow geographic areas

Operation

Non-profit- Doesn’t seek to return funding to an ownership class, all proceeds stay within pursuing mission

Non-charitable- Doesn’t have charitable status, isn’t focused on direct aid, high administrative overhead

Multimodal Service Delivery- Is focused on more than one thing as a main service or function

Permanent Staff- Typically retain staff dedicated to running the operations of the organization

Representational- Assumes or is given a mandate to speak for its membership to institutions and governments

Leadership

Amateur Leadership- Top leadership is typically comprised of those with little management experience

Dynamic Leadership- Leadership sees frequent turnover

Cutthroat Leadership- There is a common tradition of emerging student leaders willing to engage in knifefighting to secure a position by deposing the former officeholder

Differences in nature

By understanding the characteristics, one can understand how they may differ from other organizations. For a few non-exhaustive examples of some differences, few unions see dynamic membership or leadership on the level of student associations, nor are their leadership typically as amateur, nor are most youth focused. While a private club may be incorporated, it is rarely as quasi-governmental as a student association, and rarely has an apathetic membership, nor is it usually multimodal. A student club will rarely have mandatory membership. Businesses are not non-profit, and rarely have amateur leadership. A foundation is rarely non-charitable, nor has a dynamic membership or dependency. A service organization like a Rotary Club has a mandate more external to the membership than that of a student union. A co-operative meets many of the characteristics, but is rarely dependent, nor is is technically non-profit or youth focused. A grassroots advocacy movement is usually not formalized, nor is it conceptualized to always be permanent, and it’s typically not quasi-governmental. A municipal government has a less dynamic leadership, and has far less membership dynamism as well. Federal or provincial governments are typically neither dependent nor local.

By the absence of characteristics, one can sometimes also infer things that are not differentiating in the nature of student associations. For example, “bargaining function” is not listed, because many student associations are never functionally serving as a bargaining unit with tools resembling labour unions, even if many graduate student associations do serve this function. Also, student associations are neither “specially regulated” nor “regulated as non-profits”. While they may be non-profits, some student associations are governed solely by non-profit rules, but others have entire pieces of legislation targeted at them, a way that they may differ from, for example an agricultural society (specially regulated) or a buying club (typically only governed as non-profits).

With the advent of undergraduate student associations starting to form bargaining units to negotiate for expulsion of bad professors, and them ousting up to 20 at the University of British Columbia, maybe student associations will soon have bargaining function as a universal descripion.