Ten candidates are to contest this year’s Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) elections. Three of the six races are uncontested, with only one candidate running.
The list was announced this evening on the steps of House Six by incumbent Education Officer Bev Genockey, with a two-week campaign period scheduled to begin on Monday February 21.
President
Gabi Fullam
Gabi Fullam is currently in her final year as a politics, philosophy, economics and sociology (PPES) student. Fullam is the current Ethnic Minorities Officer of TCDSU. She has been involved in Trinity Publications, and is the current Co-editor of Icarus magazine, and Editor-in-chief of Trinity Women and Gender Minorities’ Review. Fullam is a former House and Archives Manager of DU Players, and has been involved in competitive debating with the Hist.
Rebecca Kelly
Rebecca Kelly is a Senior Sophister law student and current Gender Equality Officer of TCDSU. She is the current chair of Trinity Women in Law, a subcommittee of Trinity Law Society. She previously served as Law Convenor for TCDSU and the President and Founder of the European Law Students Association.
Education Officer
Zöe Cummins
Zöe Cummins is a Junior Sophister astrophysics student. She is currently the TCDSU Convenor for STEM students, as well as President of Trinity SUAS Society, an ambassador for Trinity Access, and a head mentor for Student 2 Student (S2S). Prior to these roles, she served as Secretary of TCDSU’s Welfare Committee and as TCDSU’s Convenor for the School of Physics, and was involved with Spunout.
Welfare & Equality Officer
Chloe Staunton
Chloe Staunton is a Senior Sophister Business & Sociology student. She is the incumbent Disability Officer of TCDSU, and serves as the first ever Ambassador of S2S, as part of a new initiative by the society. She is also the Secretary of and a head mentor for S2S. She has participated in the Inclusive Curriculum Project, an initiative established by College to “embed principles of diversity, equality and inclusion across all curricula” across Trinity.
Cúnla Morris
Cúnla Morris is a Senior Sophister student of modern Irish and history, a class representative, and an ordinary member of TCDSU Welfare Committee. They served as Oifigeach na Gaeilge of TCDSU during the 2018/19 academic year. Morris was involved in the campaign against the closure of the Science Gallery, and has spoken out about the exclusion of fadas from names on student Leap cards.
Communications & Marketing Officer
Julie Smirnova
Julie Smirnova is a Senior Sophister PPES student. Currently, she is Citizenship Officer of TCDSU, a volunteer coordinator for Trinity St Vincent de Paul, and an S2S mentor. She was formerly the chair of Trinity Young Greens and a member of Trinity Politics Society’s Women in Politics subcommittee.
Entertainments Officer
Max Lynch
Max Lynch is Junior Sophister engineering student. He has been involved with DUDJ, Trinity’s digital arts society, for several years. He is a co-founder of Mobius, a clothing brand with a focus on sustainability, which says it aims to “give back to our world”. The brand was launched in 2020 by Lynch and a former classmate of his from secondary school.
Nadia
Nadia is a Junior Sophister computer science student. She has served as a class representative for computer science for two years, and helped to organise STEM Ball. She has also done event organisation work outside of college, including for promoter Bodytonic at its venue the Bernard Shaw.
Ross Donnelly
Ross Donnelly is a Senior Sophister computer science and business student. Donnelly is currently the events officer for Trinity Sailing and also directing the VDP pantomime. He was a previous Student 2 Student (S2S) mentor in the academic year 2020-21.
University Times Editor
Mairead Maguire
Mairead Maguire is a Junior Sophister history and political science student. She currently serves as the University Times’ deputy editor, having taken over after the previous deputy editor resigned in November. Between June and November 2021 she served as the paper’s news editor, and as societies editor during the year before that. She has also been involved with DU History and did an internship with Trinity Disability Service.
All Trinity students, undergraduate and postgraduate, are members of TCDSU and therefore eligible to vote. The union’s membership fees are charged when students pay their tuition. Last semester, postgraduate students reported not receiving information on how to participate in TCDSU elections.
A re-open nominations option will be included as a candidate in each of the six elections.
The Electoral Commission (EC) oversees the election process and the campaign period, ensuring that no candidate breaches any of the rules laid out in the constitution and that all votes are counted correctly. Last week, Adam Balchin was elected chair of the EC.
Speaking to Trinity News, Balchin confirmed that in-person campaigning will be allowed for this year’s elections, but all voting will take place online, as it has for all other TCDSU elections and referenda this academic year.
Last year, campaigning and voting for the election took place entirely online, as almost no in-person teaching activity was taking place in Trinity.
Reporting by Jack Kennedy, Shannon Connolly, Grace Gageby, Kate Henshaw, Bella Salerno, Sarah Emerson, Jamie Cox and Connie Roughan.
This article was updated on January 8 to note that the correct title is “Welfare & Equality Officer” rather than “Welfare Officer”. Trinity News apologises for the error.
