This year’s Trinity Hall JCR elections began yesterday, with hopeful candidates vying to be part of the 11-person strong committee responsible for student life and wellbeing in Trinity Hall. The three-day campaign period will end with a count at Mother Reillys on Wednesday, March 16th.
Out of the 11 positions, which include Treasurer and Welfare Officer, the role of JCR President is the one with the most responsibility when it comes to the college lives of 1,000 students, mostly first years. Tasked with ensuring the comfort and security of first years as they transition into college life, as well as continuing the work of current President, Shane Rice, on the consent workshops which will begin in Halls next year, the JCR President must show that they are confident in the role in order to offer incoming students a memorable and satisfying student life.
The two candidates running for the coveted position this year, Felix Gather and Sara Ní Lochlainn, spoke to The University Times about their plans.
Felix Gather, a first-year medicine student, spent his summer before college in Uganda, essentially running a summer school with four others after the local teachers left and “handed them the keys”. Running a school of 500 students was a “daunting” experience, but one which he believes shows the extent of his ability to organise and lead. Other achievements include organising his graduation in secondary school, which he admits was “very stressful”. It involved “shepherding a lot of drunk people around”, he jokes, “which is very relevant to the JCR”.
On the subject of alcohol, Gather becomes serious when speaking about running alcohol- free events. He praises the current JCR for offering “a lot more”, in terms of alcohol-free events, but he doesn’t think the JCR has “done everything perfectly”.
“I want to continue the trajectory which they’ve set on”, he explains, “because there’s a large and often silent community of people who don’t drink and feel like there’s not much on offer for them”. Gather emphasises the fact that “there are so many reasons why people don’t drink, and it’s not about questioning that”. He also feels “very strongly” that there should be more free events, because sometimes even “the price of €5 is out of financial reach”.
For Gather, Freshers’ Week is “one of the key aspects of the JCR President’s role”, because the week acts as a foundation for the rest of the year. Looking back at this year’s weekend, Gather feels that there were a lot of things he “would have done differently”.
Gather is confident that the JCR can play a role in wider College life. He points to the consent workshops as the “first time” he’s seen the JCR broaden their scope, and target a College-wide issue.
He admits: “I was miserable the first night. There was no pre-drinks, so everyone got ready by themselves, and were sitting on the buses awkwardly.” He feels that this could be rectified by having more events that will facilitate people turning up alone.
Inclusivity is important for Gather and, if elected, he would like to allocate a member of the JCR to each house, who could “go around on Fresher’s weekend and get to know everyone”. He explains that these JCR member would be a way of making the JCR’s services more accessible to students.
The exclusivity of Halls is something Gather considers “very upsetting, because no one talks about it”. A lot of students who didn’t get Halls, or are from Dublin, feel as if their “enjoyment of first year has been significantly reduced”, he believes. This is an issue that Gather sees as peculiar to Trinity, because there is “such a pronounced divide between those in Halls, who have loads of fun”, he explains, “and those who aren’t, who feel very left out”.
While hesitating to make such any statements without any “concrete figures”, Gather suggests that there has been “direct” cases of depression and loneliness because of people not been accepted into Trinity Hall: “I think it’s something the JCR says – ‘well it’s not our problem’ – but I think the JCR can make it their problem.”
While acknowledging that he can’t “single handedly” solve the accommodation crisis, he wants to make Trinity Hall slightly more accessible to people, so that first years can feel “more than welcome” to come to JCR events.
The JCR’s role can appear to be limited to life and events in Halls, but Gather is confident that it can play a role in wider College life. He points to the consent workshops as the “first time” he’s seen the JCR broaden their scope, and target a College-wide issue.
Speaking on the issue of consent, Gather wants the workshops to be done in a “non-judgemental” way. “Some people genuinely just don’t know”, he argues, “and there’s no reason for them to know because there’s definitely a culture where we don’t quite get the idea of consent meaning what it should mean”.
Gather wants the JCR to play a role both in Trinity Hall and across College on the issue: “I’m not saying that College and Halls are full of people who don’t know what consent is, but maybe more can be done.”
Ultimately, he says, the JCR are a body responsible for the “wellbeing of everyone in Halls”.
Sara Ní Lochlainn, an Irish and Spanish student, may only be in first year, but she has hit the ground running when it comes to involving herself in college life. As an Northern Ireland Ambassador for Trinity, she has already showed her love for college life by visiting schools and career fairs in Northern Ireland, and talking about Trinity.
Speaking to The University Times about this ambassador role, she enthuses: “I talk about how much I love Trinity and how much I’ve benefited from coming here”. Ní Lochlainn is also on the Trinity Hall Ents committee and the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) welfare committee. Ní Lochlainn, whose sister Aoibhinn was recently elected next year’s TCDSU Welfare Officer, is of the firm belief that the JCR and Trinity Hall are vital in offering a comforting and “secure” space for incoming students.
Ní Lochlainn considers herself most passionate about first-year representation in Trinity Hall. She admits that she’s been “very lucky” to get involved in so many things, but she acknowledges that a lot of people feel as though they don’t have a say, or that “they’re not really involved or aware of what the JCR does”. If she were to be elected JCR President, Ní Lochlainn would like to implement a house rep system, similar to TCDSU’s class rep system, where each house would be represented by a first-year student in JCR meetings. Ní Lochlainn hopes this would “create a link” between the JCR and the first years, and allow reps to “inform their house on what’s going on in Halls”.
Another of Ní Lochlainn’s main priorities is a “come by yourself” scheme, to be introduced during Freshers’ Week: “It’s an amazing week, but it can be a wee bit daunting”. Having attended a lot of society events by herself at the start of the year, she realises most people “missed out” because of the stigma attached to going alone.
To combat this, Ní Lochlainn wants to bring “society reps” to Halls for Freshers’ Week events, so that people who are interested in particular events can travel together, and “know a few faces”. She hopes this will encourage people to “actively participate”, and be able to take advantage of college. “I want to be able to make Freshers’ Week the best it can be”, she says.
Ní Lochlainn would like to implement a house rep system, similar to TCDSU’s class rep system, where each house would be represented by a first-year student in JCR meetings.
The mandatory consent workshops, that will begin for Trinity Hall residents in September and has been a major topic of debate lately, is something that Ní Lochlainn is quick to bring up in conversation, as it’s “very important” to her, and something she wants to focus on in the JCR.
She emphasises that while it’s “a huge issue”, she wants the workshops to be fun and interactive: “I want people to want to learn about consent.” Ní Lochlainn believes that incentivising the workshop, rather than penalising non-attendance, is the best way to get people to engage with it. To encourage attendance, she wants to organise a night out in conjunction with the workshops, with attendance guaranteeing entry.
“Workshops are compulsory” she explains, “but it’s more important to promote them as a fun, social thing. People want to be involved in and want to listen and learn.”
Finding somewhere to live post-Trinity Hall is a problem most students struggle with, and this challenge is something Ní Lochlainn is keenly aware of. She proposes house-hunting workshops to help students understand how to begin looking for a house, the “legalities” of renting, and hopes to organise flatmate-finding events in Halls: “It can be very hard, and I want to make the transition easier.” According to Ní Lochlainn, dealing with the accommodation crisis has been something that has been a “constant” part of the work of the JCR, and she emphasise that she “wants to be that constant support” for students too.
Both candidates identify similar issues that will be faced by the JCR next year, and their approaches to solving these are not radically dissimilar either. In what is sure to be a tight race, both must demonstrate what exactly makes them unique, and best suited to the role of JCR President.
Voting will be held in the canteen in Trinity Hall on Wednesday at 8pm.
Correction: 18:30, March 14th, 2016
An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that there were nine positions on the JCR. In fact, there are 11.
