An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the Graduates’ Student Union (GSU) has been postponed until April 14. The meeting was initially scheduled for tonight.
On Tuesday, postgraduate students were notified via email that an EGM had been called for Thursday.
The agenda of the meeting includes motions to divest from Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) – which both undergraduates and postgraduates are members of – and to introduce a third paid sabbatical officer to the GSU.
Postgraduate students received notification from the union today that the meeting has been rescheduled by two weeks to allow sufficient time for documents to be read by members.
The GSU expressed regrets that the meeting had had to be postponed due to “a technical point”, saying that “GSU Executive deeply apologizes for cancelling our meeting on such short notice.”
Schedule I of the constitution of the GSU mandates that “at least fourteen days before a General Meeting, a notice of such meeting and an agenda of the business to be transacted thereat shall be posted in a conspicuous place in the Common Room and in the Arts Block and in the Hamilton Building and at other appropriate locations throughout College.”
Further to this, Chapter C. of the schedule lays out the conditions for the calling of an EGM. The Executive Committee may call one “following a written request signed by twenty full members of the Union stating the purpose for which the meeting is called”.
A request for comment to the GSU President on the motions due to be discussed was redirected to the union’s Oversight Officer. Trinity News has not received a response at the time of publication.
The motion to divest from TCDSU put forward that undergraduate students “are unable to properly advocate on the behalf of postgraduate students as they lack the lived experience of postgraduate students”.
“This view of representation is reflected within the College Statutes in which it is stated that there is a right for students to representation by a union, but not a specific union.”
TCDSU issued a response yesterday in which it said that it has “a constitutional obligation to represent the interests and provide services to all students in Trinity”.
TCDSU said that if the GSU motion passed, it would “greatly limit the ability of both unions to effectively cooperate in representing all students within the college”.
