The Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) has voted to seek an extension for the completion of a new student partnership agreement, which is due to be finalised this month.
The agreement outlines the relationship between the GSU and Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union and the College, and how the three bodies can work together for the benefit of students.
Some 85.7 per cent of attendees voted in favour of the motion.
According to the motion, the deadline for the new agreement is “unrealistic” and the GSU will now seek an extension to allow GSU members to revise the document.
The motion stated that the agreement “has not been developed enough to represent the postgraduate community and needs the GSU to engage deeply with it so that we are comfortable that it represents our students’ needs”.
“The document is not COVID proofed and lacks adequate mitigation measures for in-person examinations for example during the pandemic. In the midst of postgraduate reform it is imperative that the GSU members rewrite this partnership.”
The union also voted in a new oversight board this evening, after the union’s President Gisèle Scanlon ordered the outgoing board to resign over the summer.
The new board includes former provostial candidate Prof Jane Ohlmeyer, Director of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Prof Sarah Alyn-Stacey and solicitor Conor Duff.
Other motions passed include a mandate to lobby for no in-person exams, which Scanlon has already been doing in recent weeks.
Scanlon, who proposed the motion, said: “We feel that even today’s news of the antigen testing is not really appropriate to keep our postgraduate invigilators [safe].”
Trinity has ordered 100,000 free antigen tests for students, which are due to arrive next week.
Scanlon added: “The passing around of paper and the in-person aspect to [exams] is extremely dangerous in light of the current numbers.”
Speaking in favour of the motion, GSU Environmental Officer Jamie Rohu said: “I think there is quite a risk for workers contracting COVID, and I know there’s people here on the line right now who are sick with it.”
“As someone who has worked as an invigilator … at the moment I am not working and I haven’t put myself forward for that out of fear of contracting COVID-19.”
