Deputy News Editor
Graduate Students’ Union President Mary O’Connor has expressed her outrage after PhD and postrgaduate students who have research space in Phoenix House were ordered to move their desks at short notice or had their study space removed by refurbishments set to take place in the building, despite no contractor having been hired to undertake the work.
Department heads received an email from the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Academic Officer on Friday, January 6, asking them to inform students that the reconfiguration of Pheonix House, originally scheduled for the Easter break, would take place on Saturday, January 14th, two days before term recommences and with many students still located outside of Dublin.
Having been informed by GSU President O’Connor that College may face a liability if essential research was disrputed, head of the refurbishment project Pat McDonnell agreed to extend the deadline for students to move to their new allotted space until Wednesday, January 18th. O’Connor described the extension as ‘a start’.
In addition to the troublesome reconfiguration, 17% of students in each school are to lose their study space entirely, with the lists of students affected being arbitrarily evicted due in the near future.
In response to what O’Connor called a ‘lack of communication’ on behalf of the College authorities involved with regards the time frame for operations, the GSU have established a Postgraduate Space Initiative Committee group consisting of postgraduate representatives and researchers, with whom Provost Patrick Prendergast has promised to meet. The University Times understands that the Dean of Students and the Dean of Graduate Studies have also declared their concern at the lack of communication and its potential consequences for postgraduate research.
‘It was promised by the Space Utilisation and Estates Committees that I would be notified with the time line of plans and configurations with the dean of AHSS and buildings Pat McDonell,’ said O’Connor, speaking to The University Times, ‘I have not been informed, however, nor have the students and department heads.
‘Recruiting more students and misleading potential postgraduate students seem to be a common feeling amongst the postgraduate AHSS student body.’, she added, citing the example of a mother-of-two for whom working from home is not a constructive option.
In an email sent to the PSIC, O’Connor assured its members that ‘The [Chief Operating Officer] assured me that she would make sure that all information would be passed on from buildings’ before adding that the College Bursar ‘questioned why students couldn’t use the space until the contractor was hired and scheduled’.
