With four candidates running for the role of JCR President, and with campaigning underway, the race to decide who will lead the committee that works to maintain the well-being of the 1,000 plus students living in Trinity Hall will conclude on March 15th.
The JCR committee is comprised of 11 second-year students in a variety of different positions, ranging from the entertainments officer, who facilitates the nights out, to the tech officer, who is in charge of the WiFi in Halls. However, as the figurehead of the JCR, the president holds the most responsibility.
The presidential candidates spoke to The University Times about their personal experiences in Trinity Hall and how that will affect their potential presidencies, with ideas ranging from creating a house by house representative system to weaving in more society based events.
German and law student Maeve Claffey, history student Hugh McInerney, human genetics student David Ola and BESS student Bill Badger Walsh are these candidates, four students out of a total of 51 students running for 11 different positions on the JCR committee.
Claffey views the JCR as the guiding light to first-year students, ensuring the wellbeing of residents is looked after. According to her, the JCR president’s specific role is “leading the rest of the team and making sure that the transition is as smooth as possible”. McInerney’s view of the role of the JCR is similar to Claffey’s, with him emphasising that they are “there to reassure them and to tell them that feeling utterly lost and confused and dazzled isn’t actually abnormal”. However, he also believes the president must be versatile in what is required of him or her.
Claffey and McInerney cite their experiences as prefects in their secondary schools, which they believe gave them skills that are directly translatable to the role. Claffey also brought up her experience of being Secretary-General of her school’s Model UN conference, which she claims helped her “assume the position of authority over my peers who were my subordinate officers but also my friends”, which she believes comes with being president. For reasons as to why he would make a good president, Ola cited his past experiences working for a Rotary Youth Leadership Program in Kilkenny and coaching debate teams in his secondary school. Walsh didn’t cite any specific experiences he had which would give him skills, but rather claimed: “I’m not really afraid of representing the interests of people or saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said.”
One positive point Claffey had in Halls was the level of interaction the residents had with each other in the first month. However, she concedes, that this experience might not have been felt by all residents. To address this, she wants to introduce specific course nights interwoven with the planned events of Freshers’ Week, especially “for people who come from areas far from Dublin … it’s really important to have a familiar face, if not a friend in the first weeks of college”.
Arguably Claffey’s most revolutionary manifesto point is the introduction of a “Halls Council” in which two residents from each house would be elected. Claffey believes that, if implemented, it could be “a really important way of maintaining democracy in Halls because currently, the residents don’t have an excellent way of feeding back to the JCR”. When questioned on the timing of elections for house representatives, the first month often hectic for even the most prepared of first-year students, Claffey clarified that the elections for the representatives would occur in November or December to allow for an informed vote. Unlike Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union’s (TCDSU) council, however, the JCR council would not take political stances or create mandates. Rather, it would act as an open forum where residents can air grievances and bring issues to the attention of the JCR.
Employment and finding job opportunities makes an appearance in Claffey’s manifesto, a focus not found in other manifestos. She proposes introducing a job fair for residents to help find available jobs in the surrounding area, and would work with the JCR Vice-President Communications and Marketing Officer during the summer to find local employers willing to hire students. She stressed the importance of the locality of the businesses that would be invited, saying that locality would be beneficial for all students, “especially for people who wouldn’t be familiar with the area”.
Social interaction, for McInerney, is an incredibly important aspect of Halls. He says that his best friends have all been made in Halls and he is incredibly close with his flatmates. However, he does recognise that not everyone has this positive an experience. He would advocate “a night out or a session for the first few months just to bring the whole house together, if people want”. Part of his belief that social interaction should take more of a front-seat role is the introduction of more society events in Halls.
The prospect of bringing societies into Halls is a difficult undertaking, and McInerney seems to understand this. “It would be tougher and that’s why I’d keep the events low-key enough to start with.” As he would advocate for much more informal types of events, he believes that societies will not have to commit too many resources to a relatively outlying sector of campus.
Both in his manifesto and a few times in the interview, McInerney mentions his experience in filmmaking, specifically stating his role as ents officer for DU Film Society. In his manifesto, he proposes the possibility of increasing the number of times the Halls Herald is printed as well as creating videos to help promote Halls. He claims he would work with the publications and communications officers and that this would not be a distraction from the responsibilities the president already has, but rather an addition. He also states that his specific role would be that of “just putting [ideas] out there and then giving it to the pubs and comms officer to go run with it”.
According to Ola, the JCR President should be, first and foremost, not only the point of contact between the residents and the Warden, but also the most approachable person in Halls. He says that he can fit this role as “when I ask you about your day, I genuinely mean it”.
In Ola’s manifesto, there is a very apparent focus on the sense of community fostered in Halls. Ola puts forth the idea of creating a new role for students in which two residents of each house would be elected as house reps and meet with the assistant wardens and the JCR to discuss issues facing students in their particular houses. This idea is not dissimilar to Claffey’s idea of also having house reps. Ola also wishes to improve the already existing relationships created among houses by having house-specific events, stating that this idea and the house reps idea “can work in tandem with each other” to create “a good experience in Halls”.
Ola also wants to increase the visibility of societies to residents of Halls, noting that his programme to include more societies into Hall’s life “would be there to bridge the gap between how isolated Halls is and trying to get it more connected to the main campus”. His idea would invite different societies to come to Halls once every three weeks, if possible. Ola said he spoke to a few societies over Reading Week about this possibility, specifically the Science Fiction Society (Sci Fi) and the University Philosophical Society (the Phil), and he said “they were really, genuinely interested in coming to Halls”. These events would be separate from the Freshers’ Fair held in Halls during Freshers’ Week and continue throughout the year.
The welfare of residents also makes an appearance in Ola’s manifesto in the form of extending the 24-hour study space provided in April for end-of-year exams to December in anticipation of the likely change in the academic year structure. When asked whether the College, and more specifically Halls, could afford to expend the resources required to have an additional period of 24-hour study, Ola replied: “It’s a university. They should not feel like it’s too much to give students a space to study. Especially before exams.” He also wants to mend the, at times strenuous, relations between Halls residents and the residents of Temple Road. Students leaving Halls late at night and leaving broken glass on the sidewalk have been issues raised in the past by local residents.
Walsh strays from the others on his view of the JCR as he sees it as less of a caretaking body and more of a representative body for the residents, stating that the role of the president is to actively campaign for students’ issues. “I think particularly the JCR president, in having that title, gives a certain weight to being part of campaigns.” When asked what makes him the best choice for this role, he explained that he is willing to stand on issues and for students whereas some others might not.
One aspect of being President of the JCR Walsh looks forward to, should he be elected, is continuing to work with the consent workshops that were held for Halls residents this year: “One of the things I’d be in favour of is introducing it on a university-wide basis, not just for Halls students.” He also wants to introduce inclusivity training for all JCR officers, in which officers would attend programmes that would help them organise events that “are accommodating to a diverse range of people”.
As part of his crusade to fight on students’ issues, Walsh says he would like to see a bike shed built to protect students’ bikes. He says he would lobby the College directly to get funding for the shed and would “be happy to organise petitions and things to get that looked at”. If necessary, he says, he could look at the JCR budget to possibly get funds from that. When asked if he would support an increase in accommodation fees to pay for it, he said he would not. Rather he would propose “possibly a referendum in Halls asking people if they wanted to pay maybe a levy, a small amount of money every few years, with maybe the exception of students who receive grants and things, so to have a levy and then after a few years we’d have enough money raised to build a bike shed”.
Political activism is something that Walsh emphasises in his manifesto and when talking about his plans for next year. He, as the head of the JCR, believes it is his responsibility to campaign for students. However, he says he would only campaign on issues on which the vast majority Halls residents agree, such as accommodation and education fees: “If there is something that obviously is nearly a unanimous opinion that everybody in Halls had, I’d be willing to fight for that.” With more controversial issues, such as the repeal the eighth campaign, he said he would tread very lightly and listen to all voices, if he were to tread near that topic at all.
All four candidates seem to understand what role they are to play in the JCR as well in the broader scheme of student politics on campus, whether or not those views are uniform. Getting societies more involved and more local representation are the common threads between the candidates. The short campaign period will most likely create an atmosphere of tension and excitement for the days to come, at least in Halls.
