Dublin City University (DCU) has suspended its Accounting and Finance Society from social activity for one semester after an election for their first year representative saw members engage in “nude acts” and the completion of “challenges”. The events, shown in a video, have been described as “frat style games”, by Dublin Live.
The society, which describes itself on Facebook as “one of the most popular societies in the University”, has since released a statement on the video, describing the “misconduct” seen at its EGM on 4 October. The society has said that it will “ensure that this does not happen again”, and also took the opportunity to “apologise to any member who was offended by last weeks [sic] AGM”.
According to the College View, “students had to go through a series of tasks”, in order to compete for the position. Students were initially put into pairs, with partners popping balloons held between their waists.
The College View also reported that students successful in this round were “split into two groups: people in a relationship, and people who were single. The people who were single had to ‘shift’ (tongue kiss) someone to move onto the next round”.
They concluded their account of the events by saying that “the three remaining couples had to sing a different song. The couples stripped to varying degrees during the performances”. They also stated that during the event, “one man fell off a table while stripping down to his underwear, and he later removed another students’ top”. The voting process for the election was also based on “who got the loudest cheers”.
During their second EGM, the head of the society Oran O’Donoghue shared his belief that it was not due to “the action of any one participant, but the distastefulness of the process”. He also noted that “partly it was due to the crowd that was there, and it was the situation that we put them into that allowed all that kind of reaction to occur”.
The suspension means that the annual A&F European Mystery Tour, usually running during the suspension period, has been put off to a later date. The group addressed this in their statement and said that “ticket sales, scheduled for the 17th of October, have been postponed”.
Despite this suspension, the society are still permitted to engage in non-social activities, and can continue to run “accounting grinds, networking sessions, and other non-social activities during semester one”.
This comes shortly after student anger in DCU led to the reduction of chicken fillet roll prices at the college’s Londis shop. Students described the price increase as “daylight robbery”, and also saw their Students’ Union Vice President for Academic Affairs Callaghan Commons air his frustration at the move. Following this objection, Londis reduced the prices, noting that “[they] welcome feedback, it is the best way to improve our service”.
