The dual title of Communications and Marketing Officer in Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) gives rise to an expansive brief, covering everything from media requests to sponsorship deals. Sole candidate Julia Smirnova recognises that this the broad range of duties the role brings, with students regularly asking: “Is that a communications officer’s job?”
Smirnova, a fourth-year PPES student and the current TCDSU Citizenship Officer, is running on a platform of building community in the union which she believes will allow it to communicate more effectively with students and increase engagement. She argues that “people aren’t going to pay attention to the socials if they aren’t caring about the union”.
“The only way to get people to care about it is to make sure that they feel that they’re involved and that the union’s there for them.”
Smirnova believes that the union should take inspiration from societies to increase engagement because “the society life that we have here is completely unparalleled”. She envisions a community that will be built through organising “little things like, you know, free SU soup lunch times” or community groups where people can teach each other skills such as graphic design or cooking.
As well as detailing her knowledge of graphic design and being “the face of the events and the face of the fundraising activities and the volunteering activities”, Smirnova says her experience as Public Relations Officer of Trinity Vincent De Paul (VDP) has allowed her to understand just how important that sense of community is.
“One thing that I have learned in VDP in particular is as important as the socials and the email are the reason that people show up to things and the reason that people are dedicating four years of their lives to a silly little student society is because they feel like they’re part of something and it’s that word of mouth communication that’s so important.”
“It’s harder to quantify and it’s harder to say: ‘I’m going to do more of that’ because it’s an intangible thing like building that community.”
“You can make all the graphics that you want and you can put up all of the Instagram stories that you like but you need to work together to build the thing that sustains all of that”, she says.
She believes that the connections made as a result of building community in the union will ensure that “when we do organise protests and we do organise strikes that there’s that massive big number of people sitting there ready to come out and protest”.
The Communications and Marketing Officer is also responsible for promoting the union’s campaigns. Pondering the perennial debate of whether the union’s should focus on local or national and international issues, Smirnova says: “I think the distinction between local issues and national issues is important but it’s also a little bit flawed I think because there’s so much overlap between them.”
She says that sometimes the union promotes these issues in a way “that does feel a little bit detached from people’s day-to-day experiences” and that she would try to “communicate the links between personal issues and national issues a little bit more”.
With the onset of the pandemic, the communications aspect of the role has evolved into delivering vital updates to students about restrictions, highlighting the importance of the union being able to reach every student. Smirnova believes that the union’s weekly email is the best way to ensure that important information reaches students but she says that she thinks “there’s room for reform” to the format.
She plans to shorten the email “and maybe add in an opt-in newsletter that people could sign up to with detailed updates about what the union is doing so those important updates about restrictions and local issues on campus, accommodation increases or mitigation measures for exams … can go in the email and people would be more likely to actually read them”.
When asked how she would reach postgraduate students specifically – the union represents both, but is sometimes criticised for prioritising undergraduates – she says: “I think the main thing there is to just increase collaboration and co-ordination with the Graduate Students’ Union because the main issue is with the mailing lists so if there’s no way of actually accessing the postgraduate students’ information then … that information can be relayed then across the socials.”
While she has a clear vision for building a community and reaching out to students and experience doing so, Smirnova admits that she does not have much experience securing sponsorships. She says the main responsibilities in her past positions were graphic design and managing social media accounts but she is “really excited to rise to the challenge of securing sponsorships”.
“In my discussions with past officers, a lot of members of the students’ union have done a such a great job of establishing really strong relationships with sponsors … I’d just be really excited to continue those relationships and build on them even more.”
She is adamant that the union’s sponsorships are in line with its values. “The students’ union exists to defend students’ interests and any sponsors that we get have to be student centred.”
“I think it would be extremely hypocritical of us to campaign on issues and then turn around and partner with organisations that are completely incongruent with them.”
“For instance, the SU’s got an Environmental Officer and we run events with Green Week, and we talk about holding corporations accountable for their share of emissions… [so] if Ryanair knocked on my door, I’d send them flying.”
Increasing the transparency and accessibility of the union is another central aim of Smirnova’s campaign. It is also something that she is uniquely well-prepared for as the union’s Citizenship Officer.
“My whole job is increasing transparency and making sure that people can actually have a say in decision making”, she says.
She believes that increasing the transparency of College’s decision making is an important step to increasing the union’s transparency as it will “give students a better idea of where their voice is represented and what committees our SU reps sit on”.
“A lot of the decisions that are made at council and are made in SU subcommittees, a lot of the time those decisions flow into the college board and the college committees.”
On increasing transparency in the union specifically she proposes publishing council minutes and agendas in a “digestible” format via a newsletter and on social media so students know what motions are being voted on.
She also hopes that this will increase engagement as it will allow students to “lobby your class rep, like you lobby your TD”.
The communications and marketing officer is also responsible for the TCDSU’s internal communications – an aspect of the union which has been responsible for multiple controversies this year, including a breach of GDPR by a member of the union’s Slack workspace.
On the alleged breach, Smirnova says: “It is important to correct those mistakes when they happen and that mistake was corrected.”
“If something of that nature happened again I would take steps to remedy it because the union has really really detailed rules and procedures for things like that.”
“It’s just a matter of following the rules that we put down for ourselves.”
In relation to allegations of bullying in the union’s Slack, she says: “the union has the dignity and respect policy for a reason and everyone in the union we have to abide by that and the fact that that issue was brought up at council is a good thing because it just speaks to, if it was brought up at council people felt comfortable talking about it.”
“If we’re talking about building community, I think that making sure that we’re building a kind, caring community is probably the most important thing because that’s the building block for everything else.”
