Anyone who’s watched Buster Whaley’s campaign video, heard him speak on the steps of the Dining Hall or met him while campaigning will have heard of modular billing.
It’s the most central facet of Whaley’s campaign for Education Officer for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), and it began because of his own experience coming through a university which he says has a “horrible system” for charging its students.
“I think students have a lot of trouble in this college, more than other universities perhaps,” Whaley said. “[Modular billing] is what kind of inspired me to go down that route [of running for Education Officer]. I actually had never even heard of it until a couple months ago.”
Modular billing would require College to charge students per class rather than in a yearly tuition payment – which would allow those students who fail a module to retake the class alongside their degree progression, rather than repeating the year or going off-books.
“The college, they don’t care. They see that you failed the exam and [if] you’re not going to pay to repeat the year they say, “oh, we’ll see you in a year. You can try again”. And so then the consequences for students are you’re left completely isolated because you were one minute part of the college community. You had friends, you were on track to get a degree, a career, and the next, you’re stuck in limbo for a year,” Whaley said.
I asked Whaley about the feasibility of implementing such a comprehensive overhaul of the billing system in a college that notoriously moves at a snail’s pace. Whaley referenced College’s plans to restructure the MyTCD and SITS programs as a part of the strategic plan for the next five years. He says it’s the perfect time to change the system.
“In the past, the college said, this is going to cost a million euro, I think was the price they gave for modular billing. And that was because the current system would have to be completely replaced, but now they’re already going to replace it,” Whaley said. “As long as [the new system] can accommodate it, it shouldn’t be an issue.”
Modular billing isn’t the only goal Whaley’s hoping to accomplish were he elected Education Officer. He’s also spoken at length about the importance of affordable food on and around campus, which he hopes to promote through further implementation of venues like the current SU Café in Goldsmith Hall.
“If you had, in the new student centre, ‘the SU Dining Hall’, and if you had another SU Café in the Hamilton … maybe even in TBSI, they had a café close down – you can reopen it as a Student Union Café,” Whaley said. “Those are things that make an extreme difference in people’s lives on the day-to-day level. And they’re very visible.”
Whaley is unique in that he’s never worked with the Students’ Union before: a stark contrast to opponent Conchúr Ó Cathasaigh’s status as former Chair of the Electoral Commission. But Whaley doesn’t see it as a disadvantage.
“It’s a school of 20,000 students, and most of those students also don’t have experience with the union. And you don’t have to look any further than the past referendum that they just did, where you had 800 people who voted …this isn’t a critique or anything, it’s just the fact that the union does have an engagement problem,” Whaley said. “I think if you have the drive and the motivation and the passion to try and accomplish these goals, that should be enough. It should be your ideas and your willingness to enact them rather than how much experience you have.”
Whaley also has ambitions to promote visibility of the Education Officer’s duty to students as a representative. He suggested encouraging course convenors to send more regular emails with resources – he said he’s only heard from his own course convenor via emails for one year of his degree – as well as traditional methods of engagement like office hours, postering and online visibility initiatives.
“You’re the sole student representative for any kind of cases or appeals for students,” Whaley said. “More students should be aware that you have someone who’s there willing to fight on your side, even if it’s something like plagiarism where you might be guilty. You’re still entitled to representation and you should have it and you should be able to have someone to reassure you that, look, it’s not the end of the world.”
Whaley praised the direct action that the current sabbatical officers have pushed, including the recent LENS reports protests, which have led to LENS Compliance Enhancement Reports from the DisAbility Service. He says that “doubling down on their commitment to proactive lobbying” would be a centrepiece of his tenure, with an emphasis on extending support for LENS students to include further accommodation of extensions, and proposed more accommodation across College for students who have difficulty fulfilling deadlines.
“Generally speaking, I want to broaden the grounds for getting an extension, because right now, even if you have a LENS report or if you are going through the disability service, it’s tough to get an extension,” Whaley said. “If you have a job and you’re working through college, it’s even worse. They won’t do anything.”
Though direct action would remain at the forefront if Whaley was elected to the role, he also emphasised that compromise with College is a necessary step for progress and would be a cornerstone of his work as Education Officer.
“If you reach a point where you’re actively at odds with [the college], you can’t get anything done because you rely on the college to make the change,” Whaley said. “The Students’ Union can’t make the changes themselves. They have to convince the college to do it. So compromise is good, but you have to be firm with your compromise.”
