Left-wing student activist group Students4Change (S4C) have unanimously elected Ella Mac Lennan as chair and Nicholas Evans as vice-chair.
Mac Lennan assumed the role after two consecutive terms by László Molnárfi, current Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President.
A second year Political Science and Social Policy student, Mac Lennan also serves alongside Molnárfi as TCDSU Citizenship Officer, with her job being to “cultivate citizenship and political awareness in the student body.”
Nicholas Evans, elected vice-chair, also serves on the TCDSU as the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultural Studies (SLLCS) Convenor.
Molnárfi did not put himself forward for nomination during the elections held on Thursday, September 21st. In a statement to Trinity News, Molnárfi explained that he did not run in the chair election due to his current presidency for the TCDSU as “it confuses the narrative when I wear both hats”.
He said S4C has become a “force to be reckoned with in student politics…[having] garnered student and staff support, as well as national media attention”.
“This is because the time is right for socialist politics, as people are looking for radical alternatives to the prevailing capitalist order,” he said.
Molnárfi said he intends to remain an ordinary member of the S4C and is “happy to hand over the executive functions of [the] group to [the] newly elected Chair Ella and Vice-Chair Niko and [he is] confident that Students4Change as well as the socialist tendency in the student movement will keep growing”.
The S4C’s mission statement, as found on their website, describes themselves “as a collective of socialist students, who work actively to dismantle the corporate university, as well as the racist, imperialist, white supremacist, patriarchal and cisheteronormative systems it reflects and reproduces”.
Since their establishment in 2021 by Molnárfi, S4C has campaigned on a wide range of student-related and social issues, including to Stop the HEA Bill in 2022, #NoInPersonExams, and their boycott of the Buttery following issues with students being asked to leave after bringing their own food into the restaurant space.
S4C also conducts research and surveys on a number of issues, including counselling services wait times, war investments, and the exploitation of students by accommodation providers.
Earlier this month, the organisation announced that its membership had grown to 104 nationwide, with branches having been set up in several other third-level institutions, including University of Galway, Maynooth University, University College Dublin (UCD).
