The chair of the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) board has called on the union to release emails to the Capitation Committee regarding the board’s investigation into the GSU’s contentious April EGM.
The union’s President Gisele Scanlon, Vice President Abhisweta Bhattacharjee and Oversight Officer David Donohue have said that the board’s conclusion – that the president and vice president did not sufficiently engage in the process – was “misleading, inaccurate, misrepresentative and unfounded”.
An email sent to the Capitation Committee yesterday which was signed by Scanlon, Bhattacharjee and Donohoe, seen by The University Times, said that “there has been ongoing and full engagement from the GSU team”.
In an email statement to The University Times today, 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.”
“Claims of vindication based on a list of emails lack credibility”, Walsh said.
Scanlon, Bhattacharjee and Donohue said in their email: “The GSU and the Board have had a total of 25 emails in 7 weeks which translates into 3 emails per week (see attached summary of email timestamps); this illustrates that there has been ongoing and full engagement from the GSU team”, they added.
“Therefore, the GSU finds the GSU Board members’ decision disappointing in that it is misleading, inaccurate, misrepresentative and unfounded. The GSU Board’s deliberation does not reflect the interests and spirit of a Union that is constituted to represent 5,000+ postgraduate students at Trinity College Dublin. Please see the link attached of engagements with timestamps.”
The contents of the emails were not included in the email to the Capitation Committee.
The board received two complaints about the events of the EGM – a meeting that provoked outrage among members of the GSU.
Following the meeting, petitions to impeach Scanlon and Bhattacharjee – who were both re-elected to their positions in June – were circulated among postgraduates. The petition to impeach Scanlon reached the requisite 60 signatures.
The GSU Board’s summary of conclusions said that “the Board communicated with the GSU Vice President in her capacity as Secretary to the Executive (on 1 May 2021) and the GSU President (on 17 May, 2 June and 23 June) to seek their response to issues raised in these submissions”.
“No such submission was received by the Board by the designated and extended deadline (Friday 25 June) following interaction over a period of seven weeks.”
The Capitation Committee, which provides funding to the GSU, subsequently said it would withhold funding from the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) until the union deals with the complaints about the EGM.
Scanlon did not respond to a request for comment. Donohue declined to give a statement when contacted by The University Times.
