Three candidates, Gogoal Falia, Shaz Oye and Michael Sonne, will contest this year’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) presidential race, with just one candidate, Gisèle Scanlon, running for the position of Vice-President.
Gogoal Falia is a medical doctor and the current Vice-President of the GSU. He completed his MBA in Trinity in 2018. As Vice-President, he acts as a welfare and education officer, advising and representing graduates on a variety of issues like academic appeals student–supervisor relationships, examinations and dissertation extensions as well as illness, cultural adjustment and financial hardship.
Shaz Oye is the GSU’s current Equality and Diversity Officer. Oye is also a professional singer songwriter who set up her own label, Radical Faeries Records, in 2003. A self-proclaimed activist, her website states that “her street-smart political awareness fundamentally colours the lens through which she interprets her art and channels her creative energy”.
Michael Sonne is a master’s student in the Department of Philosophy and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Liverpool. Sonne is an Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) representative in the GSU. In a manifesto posted on Facebook, Sonne said that he supports the introduction of a GSU stand during freshers’ week and wanted to create an “open door policy” in the GSU. His manifesto states that as president he will organize more events aimed at graduates in order to “to foster a greater sense of community”.
Gisèle Scanlon, the only candidate running for Vice-President, is currently studying for an MPhil in art history in Trinity and is this year’s AHSS Faculty Officer. Scanlon is the Editor-in-Chief of College Green journal, the GSU’s arts journal. Originally from Listowel in Kerry, Scanlon is a writer and visual artist and has won a number of awards for her work, including a Galaxy Book Award. Scanlon has previously completed an MPhil in popular literature and an MPhil in creative writing.
The ballot for this year’s presidential election is comparatively more cluttered than last year, with current president Oisín Vince Coulter being the only person to put his name forward. As a leading member of Take Back Trinity, he played a key role in securing fee guarantees for postgraduate students.
Postgraduates will vote next Wednesday and Thursday, with students able to vote in the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) referendums regarding the future of The University Times and the length of the term of the union’s Entertainments Officer.
