When, at the Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) national congress, students raised their voting cards to support the introduction of a part-time national vice-president for postgraduate affairs, the floor buzzed with jubilant applause.
The vote, which passed without any opposition, was a long time coming. And in many ways, this new officer seemed implausible for a national union that has in recent years added two full-time officer roles. For two years, Trinity’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) President Shane Collins, the only president of a graduate students’ union in USI, found himself wringing his hands trying to draw attention to postgraduate problems at a national level, some of which include funding, working conditions and supervisor relations.
Serious questions remain about what this new part-time officer will add to representation and whether it is the best use of resources, however. As the Editorial Board has written previously, it is unlikely that the boards of the Higher Education Authority or Quality and Qualifications Ireland would accept a second student representative, and so this officer could end up being a voice with no audience.
However, the demands for full-time national representation – which were only met halfway with the introduction of a part-time officer instead – had an added benefit. This year saw a shift in the student movement’s perspective on postgraduate issues. Suddenly, they were being taken seriously.
A postgraduate student strategy drawn up by Vice-President for Academic Affairs Oisín Hassan, who was hailed for this work throughout national congress, promises that USI will re-examine its work to ensure it is all “postgraduate proof”, responding to criticism that a lot of the union’s campaigns and outreach is directed at undergraduates. This new focus on these issues could even see USI reap benefits from industry and research sectors interested in investing in postgraduate student experience.
Postgraduate representatives have been insistent for years that their issues are specific and cannot be painted with the same brush as undergraduates. It seems that this message is now resonating.
