Last week, postgraduate students voiced their concerns regarding the future of their representation in Trinity over the course of two town halls, led by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President Gabi Fullam and Education Officer Zöe Cummins.
The town halls offered postgraduate students in Trinity an opportunity to air their grievances, following the decision made by College Board to derecognise the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) as the chief representative body for postgraduate students in Trinity, stemming from years of systemic issues.
The GSU was given a wake up call in July 2021 with the threat of a funding freeze following an EGM marred by controversy when the Capitation Committee were unable to reach any conclusions about the meeting’s events due to a lack of engagement from the GSU’s president and vice president.
With the collapse of the GSU, College no longer has a representative body for postgraduate students, leaving a myriad of questions unanswered and several groups wondering who will fill the gap. The model proposed by TCDSU in the immediate future is one based on class rep elections, but this requires at least two weeks to be considered constitutional, meaning that it will take time to get the elections set up and run properly.
At the moment, there are at least 18 subcommittees without postgraduate representation, including the Graduate Studies Committee and College board. With the college statutes stipulating that there must be postgraduate representation on all college committees, the issue of postgraduate representation has become particularly pressing.
There are multiple different postgraduate groups in Trinity including those on taught masters, research masters and PhD students and each group has different needs. It is imperative that the needs of each postgraduate grouping in Trinity are met.
However, a balance must be struck between resolving the issue of representation in a timely manner and the need to hold elections in a democratic fashion to avoid the issues that plagued the GSU.
It is pivotal that TCDSU tread carefully to ensure that the same problems that led to the GSU’s collapse do not resurface again and that the voices of postgraduate students are heard.
