The change of any political guard heralds a multitude of questions about their performance in the role. In a month that saw the Irish public wave goodbye to some familiar faces and welcome a new cohort of politicians under Leo Varadkar, Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) today also bids farewell to the 2016/17 sabbatical officers. In February 2016, each officer compiled manifestos and made promises to the student population which stated that they would be the ones best suited to lead the college forward. One year on from taking up their roles in July 2016, the question arises as to how successful this year’s officers truly were at achieving what they promised?
President
Elected with 49.8 per cent of the vote last year, Kieran McNulty took up the mantle of TCDSU President with strong backing from the student population. McNulty won over the voters with manifesto points that focused on eliminating the accommodation crisis, promoting equality and empowerment and ensuring more efficient services.
While pledging to eliminate the accommodation crisis, something that has plagued Dublin and its students for years, is something of an unrealistic promise, McNulty made a significant contribution over the course of the year. McNulty contends that he employed this wording because he “didn’t really want to lead a SU where we had students on the streets”. From creating a lobby group to focus on accommodation to running a room rental advertising scheme with Daft.ie, accommodation has been a strong focus this year. Noting that TCDSU was unaware of any students without a bed on Freshers’ Week, McNulty explains that “I think now the thing has moved from ‘there aren’t enough beds’ to ‘there aren’t enough cheap and suitable beds’ so that’s what needs to happen”.
One of McNulty’s main focuses for the year, alongside Loughlin, was mental health. This was a worthwhile cause to focus time and energy into, with the announcement coming last week that the College was going to fund another counsellor as well as a doctor. McNulty said that his thinking around it was showing students “this is what the SU can do for you”. As well as securing the counsellor, the union funded an addiction recovery group and an S2S peer-support intern.
Something that has been apparent during McNulty’s term is his belief in the power of student voices. TCDSU had a strong presence at multiple marches and campaigns throughout the year, including Strike4Repeal, the March for Education and Dublin Pride. McNulty also oversaw the creation of student lobby groups that focused on issues such as education, accommodation, Brexit and other student issues. The lobby groups so far have had a mixed impact. With the higher education funding group perhaps the most visible, other campaign groups haven’t had the same success in highlighting their respective issues, with their greatest impact confined thus far to getting more students involved in the union, rather than directly impacting government policy.
However, McNulty was the only students’ union president to speak alongside USI at the Oireachtas education committee, something he says occurred “directly from the lobby group’s effort”. During Freshers’ Week, 1,500 campaign volunteers signed up – the highest number of volunteers on record. He notes his most successful moment of the year as being the March for Education in October, which saw thousands of students from across the country come out to protest any increases in fees: “I think I was really proud of how many people stood up for education when no cuts or raises to fees had come. Like it was an idea and I was really happy that so many people stood for that.”
While these wider student issues tend to yield the most noteworthy results, McNulty also stood firm on his desire to ensure student spaces were kitted out properly and that students were developing their own skills outside their courses. These promises materialised in the form of a landmark referendum for a new student centre and classes run by TCDSU that gave students barista and bar training.
Education
Dale Whelehan was elected Education Officer last year with a mandate to establish a new student partnership agreement that would ensure student voices in Trinity were made equal to all others on issues affecting them in college. It was the fulfillment of this promise that Whelehan lists as his biggest achievement after his year in office. Inspired by similar agreements set up across Scottish higher education, Whelehan expressed his belief that the introduction of the agreement was so important because it “addresses any issue that a student has ever had in college”.
Whelehan explains that after meeting with students to discuss issues they were having within college, time and time again issues could be traced back to a simple lack of dialogue between students and staff. The student partnership agreement, signed by Provost Patrick Prendergast, pledges that Trinity will listen to the voice of students and show, in an open and transparent way, everything that arises from this dialogue. It may be years before the agreement’s full benefits can be reaped, but Whelehan says that after a year of meetings with heads of schools “there definitely is the beginning of a change of culture”.
Whelehan lists his biggest shortcoming this year as his focus on casework and failure “in getting back to people as quick as possible and be able to give them strong advice” adding that he failed to realise the effect he could have on one person instead “getting caught up too much in the college [bureaucracy]”.
As well as the lack of a focus on casework, there are some parts of Whelehan’s manifesto which he put little focus on, not necessarily due to a failing, but rather because they were less integral to the role, or no longer relevant. For example, Whelehan said that he wished to lobby to reform the Irish ban on gay men donating blood. This was in part reformed by June 2016, allowing gay men with no sexual contact within the last year to donate. Whelehan also had a section of his manifesto titled “Dale don Ghaelige” making numerous pledges to improve Irish within Trinity and lobby for increased funding nationally, but he admitted in hindsight that such ideas were more suited to the welfare officer or president and that he never actually met Trinity’s Irish Language Officer.
Despite this, Whelehan was kept busy fulfilling other pledges, improving student spaces in particular for health science students, completely revamping the common room in St James’s and securing a new space in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI). Meanwhile, work is under way on a new front foyer in D’Olier St and negotiations towards attaining a new space for pharmacy students remain ongoing.
The establishment of an Academic Senate, while not actually a campaign or manifesto promise, was a notable achievement of the year, providing a pool of student representatives who are experts on academic issues and capable of discussing competently issues affecting students with the College.
Whelehan also organised trainings for Health Science students on trans and safetalk issues, which enabled them to become “knowledgeable in the areas of pronouns and being aware of medical implications of any interventions and things like that”. Also on trans issues, an event was hosted in Trinity Week titled “Transgender Healthcare in the Education System”, which Whelehan felt positively discussed how Trinity can embed these issues into the health science curriculum.
Welfare
The difficult task for every welfare officer, including outgoing officer Aoibhinn Loughlin, is knowing how to balance the casework as well as building policy that will benefit future students. Loughlin admits that throughout her year her “main interest” was casework as she had found in previous years governance and administration had been “given a lot of weight”. For her, this was “just a different way of doing things” and looking back she has no regrets about this choice. “If I had to miss a committee because there was something with a student I would pick the student. That was my focus for the year.”
Loughlin’s manifesto was relatively short, made up of a few key policies, but this didn’t stop her from taking on other projects. One such project was the consent workshops, which took a considerable amount of time, but is something that Loughlin highlights as one of the successes of her term. Mandated to roll out the workshops after their foundation was laid by last year’s Welfare Officer, Conor Clancy, Loughlin was in charge of the biggest and most successful pilot of its kind in Ireland. While many other colleges cancelled workshops due to lack of interest, Loughlin’s saw a turnout of approximately 400 people and a promise for their continuation into the future. The workshops, which ran in Trinity Hall before Freshers’ Week, took the majority of the summer to organise. Loughlin then wrote a report with help of the Senior Tutor and a counsellor within the student counselling service who is a specialist in sex and relationships to ensure that any creases were ironed out and successes highlighted. Loughlin also aided other colleges on their programmes in her own time outside of her hours as welfare officer. “The first third of the year was making the workshops happen which was a big job and the middle third was writing the report and trying to get as much information as we could and now the last couple of months have been trying to create the content for next years workshop”, she explains.
Perhaps the most memorable point from Loughlin’s manifesto was the introduction of a nap room. Located in Goldsmith Hall, the room was opened to students in late February. Loughlin admits that while it appeared to be a concern of the welfare office, a large amount of the work was also undertaken by TCDSU President, Kieran McNulty, as the the project became part of a wider union push to secure more student spaces. The delay in opening the room was due to several problems with tenders and renovations.
As is the curse of student politics, their short term in office means that often projects can run on past their time. For Loughlin, she spent a large amount of time preparing the groundwork for an “open door” policy for the welfare office. This would see Student 2 Student (S2S) peer supporters taking up residence in the office when the elected officer was unable to be there. This required drawing up a protocol for the peer supporters on what to do if a student came in requiring something more than the active listening they’re trained for. The project was mandated at the last council of the year, and so will run for two years at least, from this September. This also directly feeds into Loughlin’s “green light” system. Introduced as part of TCDSU’s revamped website, a green light appears on the website when the welfare officer is in their office and an amber light when the peer supporters are there.
Communications & Marketing
With the role of communications & marketing officer still relatively new, outgoing officer Glen Byrne admits that he didn’t know what to promise the student body when he ran last year. This is clear in his manifesto, which was by far the most ambitious out of the five sabbatical officers. With 25 promises under six headings, Byrne promised everything from increasing union transparency to ensuring greater representation of the student body. “I knew at the core what it entailed”, he says, “but there were other aspects to it like covering certain issues that the SU works on, to what extent was that covered by the communications officer? Fortunately enough though, because of that ambiguity around the position, you’re able to kind of mould it”.
Despite this, Byrne says that going into the role, he “knew what was wrong … and I knew how to fix it and the aim is that the stuff that is now cemented in the job will stay for a number of years”. The “stuff” Byrne refers to includes a branding strategy, increased communication between the College and the union and the beginning of some, hopefully, long-term relationships with outside businesses. “I think generally I have treated this job this year as like laying the foundations”, he explains.
Apparently undaunted by the large body of work he had laid down for himself, Byrne immediately started developing a branding guideline for the union. Referring to previous years, he notes that the union “wasn’t easy to identify” on a campus that prides itself on having a vibrant and well-advertised student social scene. Building those guidelines at the start of the year then “fed into everything else”. One of these things was TCDSU’s website. The much-maligned website was redone only two years ago, after work was attempted by then-President Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne and his team. This year’s redesign, the union told The University Times, cost little or nothing, but it’s hoped that there won’t be need for a similar rehash of the site in a few years time.
Despite not being on his manifesto, Byrne’s work on the website now means that the website’s homepage and the Trinity Ents page will automatically update with information and events from Facebook. In addition, Loughlin’s “green light” promise was also added to the site.
Although he promised a few things that ended up not being within his remit, such as lobbying for student issues and a holding Health Science Appreciation Day, Byrne saw his role as enabling the other student sabbatical officers to fulfil ideas of a similar ilk as “the nature of the job is you are an assistant to everyone else”.
The other side of Byrne’s role has been securing sponsorship for the union, with a major part of this knowing how to approach outside businesses. On reflection, Byrne says that this required “a completely different style of engagement” but is happy that the union has increased its advertising revenue over the year while also attracting new businesses to the campus. The union enjoyed several “mutual partnerships” in which no money was exchanged but businesses lent their services to the union in return for exposure on campus. On top of this, there are several headline sponsorship deals “in the pipeline” that Byrne isn’t allowed to talk about. “There are currently things ongoing and these things take ages. They were inevitably going to go past my time in the job because you’re talking large sums of money with large businesses”, he explains.
Entertainments
How an entertainments officer is remembered and judged is undeniably largely down to the success of Trinity Ball. That being said, the issue of Trinity Ball is rarely a key point on any candidate’s manifesto, due in part to the fact that promotions company MCD is contracted to organise the majority of the ball.
This year’s Entertainments Officer, Padraic Rowley, didn’t even mention Trinity Ball in his five primary manifesto points, instead promising the development of a Trinity Ents app, increased inclusivity, society involvement and live music, as well as shaping Trinity Ents to run events advocating the views and campaigns of the year’s sabbatical officers.
Although there remains no stand alone app for Trinity Ents, an equivalent calendar for events was set up on the domain Trinityevents.ie which is incorporated into the Trinity Myday app. Rowley had hoped that the calendar could have been the go-to-guide for all things Trinity Ents, this year but instead the application was only launched well into the second term of the year due to unforeseen agreements and approval needed from college bodies. Rowley admits that this delay made the ultimate arrival of the calendar “just too late in the year for anyone to care”. The calendar, though, will be available to use for all future students, starting from Freshers’ Week this year.
The subtle deconstruction of Trinity Ents’s reputation as an exclusive and cliquey group has perhaps been Rowley’s biggest success regarding inclusivity, with Rowley admitting “Ents used to be very much partnered with one society”. Other successes in inclusivity, according to Rowley, include art installations at Trinity Ball as well as the introduction of first year reps and a charities liaison officer on the Trinity Ents committee.
Live music was a bi-weekly custom for Trinity Ents this year, as Rowley transformed the Battle of the Bands into a year-long event, culminating in a well-attended finale which band Nobody’s Heroes, who will play Longitude this month, ultimately won.
The co-operation of societies in Trinity Ents events was a huge part of Rowley’s vision this year. Out of over 60 events run by Trinity Ents only “about 15 or 10” were not in conjunction with a society, according to Rowley.
He also looked to take influence from former Entertainments Officer Finn Murphy, who often used Trinity Ents as a tool for union campaigns. Rowley’s year began strong on this promise, organising a political hub where students could sign up to and learn more about different college campaigns as well as an anarchist night. There was also a concert held in the chapel after the Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) March for Education.
Reflecting on his work on using Trinity Ents as a political tool Rowley said: “I started off the year quite strong. I don’t think – I think we did an ok job”. “I think just when I am doing crossover with Jonah [Craig, the incoming Entertainments Officer] would warn that although you get very tired in second term just keep it up.”
Rowley lists his biggest success as the introduction of art installations at Trinity Ball and comments that, as this year was successfully planned and budgeted, “next year it’s gonna be a lot bigger and a lot more impressive”. For Rowley, the “end goal is to make something like Electric Picnic at a Trinity Ball and that is very much on the way to happening”.
