The Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) has concluded its elections for its executive committee, breaching its constitution ahead of its AGM tomorrow.
The union’s constitution stipulates that elections be held at the AGM, but this year’s executive has already been elected, and is set to be “introduced” to members at the meeting tomorrow.
The constitution also requires that the AGM be held before the end of the first full week of November, but has been scheduled for November 30th.
GSU President Gisèle Scanlon told this newspaper that the AGM “isn’t delayed at all”.
Postgraduates were initially told that the meeting would take place on Wednesday, November 30th. November 30th, 2021, is a Tuesday. The union clarified this evening that the meeting will take place tomorrow.
A revised agenda was circulated with clarification on the date. The initial agenda included an item titled “apologies” which has been removed.
Also tabled in the new agenda is the introduction of the new GSU Board, which members will be asked to ratify. The appointment of a new board by Scanlon caused controversy earlier this year. Scanlon ordered the board to step down, which the chair of the board has said was unconstitutional.
The agenda includes an “introduction to new officers and representatives”. Elections for the GSU Executive and school representatives took place earlier this month, but according to the union’s new constitution, all non-sabbatical members of the Executive Committee “shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting in each year, for a term lasting until the next Annual General Meeting save in extraordinary circumstances”.
The GSU AGM was also delayed last year. It was initially supposed to take place on Monday, December 11th, similarly in breach of the union’s old constitution. However, in an email to postgraduate students at 12.23am the Sunday before, Scanlon postponed the meeting until December 16th.
The new constitution was enacted at an April EGM but the validity of the vote was questioned, culminating in a report from the GSU board.
The board said it could not make any “substantive findings” on the controversial EGM as it did not receive “adequate engagement” from the GSU president and vice president.
Scanlon, GSU Vice President Abhisweta Bhattacharjee and Oversight Officer David Donohue said this was “misleading, inaccurate, misrepresentative and unfounded”.
In an email statement to this newspaper at the time, the board’s Chair John Walsh said: “The Board stands over the fairness and accuracy of its report. The release of a list of emails is meaningless without knowing the content of these emails and if these emails are being used to call into the question [sic] the Board’s report, the content of these emails should be made available by the GSU to the Capitation Committee.”
