Megan O’Connor has been elected as Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) Education Officer on the first count. As the sole candidate in the race, O’Connor received 88.1% of the votes, equalling 2,041 votes. Of three uncontested candidates, O’Connor received the highest proportion of first-preference votes in her race.
Polling conducted by Trinity News suggested that 85.0% of a representative sample of 1,019 students were predicted to give their first-preference vote in the Education race to O’Connor.
As Education Officer, O’Connor, a fourth-year General Nursing student, plans to address accessibility, improve engagement and deal with student support. Among O’Connor’s aims for her role as a sabbatical officer is focusing on implementing a student buddy system, reintroducing Academic Senate, advocating for modular billing and providing additional training for class reps.
Other plans O’Connor outlined during her campaign were providing accessibility and equality training for lecturers and ensuring that those involved with the Union of Students’ in Ireland’s (USI) National Annual Congress were not just students involved with TCDSU.
As the sole candidate for Education Officer, O’Connor has highlighted her experience within TCDSU. For three years O’Connor was a Class Rep until she became Off-Campus Officer for the 2019/2020 academic year. A founding member of the DU Nursing and Midwifery Society, O’Connor previously acted as Treasurer, eventually becoming Chairperson in 2019. Additionally, O’Connor sat on the Academic Senate.
During hustings O’Connor discussed the difference her time as Education Officer will be to previous years, noting that the Trinity Education Project (TEP) will come into full effect before her term begins. When answering questions, O’Connor has consistently referred to communication between the multiple bodies in College and hoping to improve this. Wanting to help students when it comes to over-assessment, O’Connor has stated she will remind the College about the importance of diversifying assessments among the different schools.
