When Oscar Wilde was a Trinity student, he merely thought that money was the most important thing in life. When he was older, he noted, he came to know that it was.
And so – despite exhortations to the opposite effect – it is hard to overstate the significance of students getting a second vote on the College’s Finance Committee, after decades with just a single representative.
This is significant not because two votes will be enough to overturn decisions or foil Trinity’s most malign financial gambits, but because it is yet another indication that students are now seen as legitimate stakeholders in the College’s decision-making processes.
This change has been a long time coming. Some of the biggest failings of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), for instance, have arisen when the union has acted like a stakeholder in situations where the College has merely considered it a fly in the ointment. All the official protestations of former TCDSU officers – items on Board agendas, formal declarations of dissent, lengthy appeals to the Visitors – saw them get nothing more than token conciliations in return.
In March, much was made of Provost Patrick Prendergast making his way to House Six in the hopes of brokering a rapprochement with the leaders of the Take Back Trinity movement. While students were similarly warned not to overstate the significance of his gesture – the Provost normally meets people in Number One Grafton Street – this was an early sign that the person at the very top had not merely chosen to change his approach, but felt he had no other option.
This dynamic with students turning on its head will undoubtedly be one of the more important consequences of the Take Back Trinity protests. Because of the obscurantism that cloaks Trinity’s bureaucracy, it’s easy to forget that stakeholders aren’t just meant to sit and nod.
You need not be versed in the etymology of the word “stakeholder” to have heard its alternative definition: “anyone who can ruin your day.” Student leaders to come should remember it.
