In an effort to improve efficiency within the union and to reduce the amount of responsibilities class representatives have, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) is to add a new Academic Senate to its governing structure.
TCDSU Education Officer, Dale Whelehan, and the Education Standing Committee will now set up an Academic Senate for a two-year trial period.
A referendum would could be held after the two years to add the structure into the union’s constitution.
Whelehan, who proposed the motion at a meeting of TCDSU’s council on Tuesday February 14th, said that one of the key reasons for introducing it is to aid the resolution of academic uses quickly, making the role of school and faculty convenors more efficient, while reducing the workload of class representatives.
He also added that the senate is needed so that there is a body within the union that “solely focuses on academic interests”.
At the council meeting, Whelehan explained that the senate will allow the Student Partnership Agreement he is working on to become a “live document”, and to be “pivotal in Quality Assurance Mechanisms and implementing the Student Partnership Agreement”. This agreement, which is currently under review by the Student Life Committee and Undergraduate Studies Committee, hopes to see students become active members in the decision-making processes of College.
The initiative hopes to engage more students with the union, who wouldn’t be necessarily interested in being a class representative but are interested in representing their class academically, and are interested in being involved with academic issues in college.
In an interview with The University Times, Whelehan said that currently class reps are expected to be “five mini [sabbatical officers] rolled into one”, and the aim of this senate would be to relieve some of the pressure on class representatives when it comes to dealing with academic issues experienced by their class.
In terms of the structure of the union, its council will remain the main democratic and governing body, with the new Academic Senate feeding back into council. To facilitate this, the Academic Senate will meet three times a term, typically a week before council, so that the minutes may feed into the meeting, explained Whelehan.
Whelehan believes that currently Faculty Forums, which sees the class reps for one of the College’s three faculties meet with their faculty convenor in the union, are not effective for several reasons: they are made of class reps who are not experts in what is happening in their programmes, nor do they wish to be; reaching quorum at these forums is very difficult currently and escalation of issues to the education officer happen more often than necessary.
Issues that arise at Faculty Forum can now be put to the senate to be resolved. Whelehan said that he will be seeking “the suspension to remove the constitutional requirement that dictates that Faculty Forums meet at least twice a term”. This, he added, will make reaching quorum easier at forums. Whelehan has suggested that Faculty Forums would now only have to meet once per term.
At February’s council meeting, Whelehan said that any issues that need to be escalated to the Education Officer will be facilitated by the fact that the Education Officer will act as chair of the senate, making such escalations immediate.
Other members of this senate will include sabbatical officers, faculty, school and programme convenors and elected academic senators. However, it would be open for all to attend, speak or put forward suggestions as is the case with the union’s council meetings.
Whelehan explained that, in order to ensure every course is represented fairly, no matter how small, two people from every course will represent on the senate as academic senators, with up to five people from one course being allowed. Should only five people apply, they are all automatically elected.
Election to this senate will be by application and not a popular vote, as is the system with class representatives. Those who are interested will apply and be reviewed, anonymously, by the Education Standing Committee. If a member of the Education Standing Committee wishes to apply, they will excuse themselves from these reviews due to the conflict of interest.
Academic senators will be elected at the end of an academic year, rather than at the beginning, and act as the primary representative staff to discuss programme and discipline issues, as well as liaisons between class reps and convenors, and they will be invited to attend student-staff liaison committee meetings. However, Whelehan noted that it has not yet been decided how many years a term for a senator should be.
These senators will also act as the main advisors to college projects, including the ongoing Trinity Education Project, which will begin for students entering in 2018/19.
Whelehan stated that he hoped to run the Academic Senate for a two-year trial period so that any issues could be dealt with, and to ensure that the senate will function in an efficient way.
Whelehan stressed that the unions will continue to be the main governing, democratic body of the union, and that the senate will make “recommendations” rather than motions to mandate the union on academic issues.
The idea for having an Academic Senate came from Maynooth Students’ Union (MSU) in NUI Maynooth. Whelehan commented on the successful senate there, and how that had sparked the idea.
