The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) will host a day dedicated to postgraduate issues in the coming weeks, as the national union tries to address the challenges facing its postgraduate members.
Speaking to The University Times, USI’s Vice-President for Academic Affairs Oisín Hassan said the union wanted to create a “dedicated space for a wider audience in terms of postgraduates”.
Postgraduate students – including Trinity’s Graduates Students’ Union (GSU) – have begun to lobby USI for representation and a postgraduate officer.
Hassan said it was necessary as USI has “never brought forward motions and policy” regarding postgraduate students.
Hassan hopes that the symposium will help “feed into the creation of a long-term strategy or policy for [postgraduates]”. He also felt it was important to show postgraduate students that USI “already do things behind the scenes”, specifically mentioning focus groups related to Quality & Qualifications Ireland (QQI) and working with the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
The event itself would touch on a variety of topics, ranging from mental health issues to postgraduate integration into institutions. Though Hassan plans to have a variety of different exhibitions in the forms of panel discussions and workshops, he emphasised the importance of interactivity as opposed to having “people just sit and listen all day long”.
USI has been working with the Department of Education and Skills finalise a date and venue for the event, with hopes that the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, will open the symposium.
Though the event would be hosted in Dublin, Hassan emphasised that the event is intended for students across Ireland, including Northern Ireland. Speaking from his own experience in Queen’s University Belfast Students’ Unions, Hassan noted his understanding that the event must be flexible to accommodate a “forum to discuss the difference North and South”.
The symposium comes after it was announced that the Irish Survey of Student Engagement (ISSE), which is partnered with USI, will be launching a national pilot programme introducing a separate survey for postgraduate students.
Hassan has promised postgraduates that they will get a vote on whether to introduce a Vice-President for Postgraduate Affairs at the union’s next Congress in 2018. Last year, a motion was brought forward by Dublin City University Students’ Union (DCUSU) but was postponed so that the union could assess its financial situation. Trinity is currently one of two universities that has dedicated postgraduate representation in the form of the GSU, alongside University of Limerick (UL), which is not part of USI.
