This week will see members of University College Dublin Students’ Union’s (UCDSU) vote in annual elections. Both the current President, Barry Murphy, and the leader of the campaign for Katie Ascough’s impeachment, Amy Crean, are amongst six candidates running for the top position. It has been a mere five months since Ascough was impeached as President of UCDSU – a vote that saw an unusually large turnout for the union. Alone, the number of candidates running for president suggests this fracas may indeed have repoliticised a union that has been plagued by apathy in recent years. However, it remains to be seen whether students will head to the polls in similar numbers.
After a year, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union’s (TCDSU) representative experiment of the Academic Senate has proven two things: new structures are difficult to integrate, and students can be intrigued enough to debate academic issues. Neither are groundbreaking, but they give hope. Trinity’s academic world is entering a new era with the Trinity Education Project and students empowered to challenge and critique it are in short supply. If the union embraces the senate’s potential – widening the scope and handing it power – it might just yet act as a much-needed new voice for students.
Holding both the Israel boycott, divestment and sanction referendum and the students’ union opt-out referendum at the same time was obviously a smart time and cost-saving exercise for TCDSU. However, there was a somewhat unexpected consequence of holding the two side-by-side. Those who campaigned for the boycott referendum tended to draw TCDSU supporters, while the union opt-out campaign tended to catch those against the union taking a stance on an international issue. It is not difficult to wonder whether, had the two not been held in the same week, we would instead be seeing College floundering to implement an opt-out button on student portals.
