Another election season is upon us, with a handful of candidates promising to deliver for students and build upon, improve or completely reform what previous unions have done. Among the most prevalent campaign promises is that of engagement – several sabbatical hopefuls have pledged to finally fix what has become a dark cloud hanging over the union’s head and increase the amount of people who engage in the union. However, when it comes to the ever-present issue of engagement in Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU), union members, sabbatical officers and election candidates too often fall into the trap of thinking about it wrong.
In every sabbatical election cycle in memory the topic of students’ engagement with TCDSU has been on almost every candidate’s lips. Many note the need to increase engagement with the union as a priority for them. We hear time and time again about how the general student population is disinterested in TCDSU and the union’s work. In a college of over 20,000 students this is unsurprising. Not every student will want to attend TCDSU council, go to union town halls or even vote in TCDSU elections. Attendance at hustings this week, where sabbatical candidates have the opportunity to demonstrate how they can represent students, is largely attended only by campaign teams and journalists. 100% engagement with the union is, in many’s opinions, an unattainable goal.
The way union representatives are decided does not appear to be the reason so many feel disconnected. The way the union currently functions relies on a representative system. Class representatives are elected by their individual courses to represent them, part-time officers (PTOs) and faculty convenors are elected within the union and up the very top, six sabbatical officers are elected by all students to represent the entire student body on a College and national level. This representative democracy on the College level means that each and every student in Trinity technically has someone representing their interests. It’s a good system, in theory.
In practice, a large number of students likely see TCDSU less as a student union and more of an overblown student society. According to Trinity News polling, 38% of students feel represented by the union and 9% feel strongly represented, which is by no means a small number. However, 16% disagree with this sentiment, 11% strongly disagree and 26% have no opinion on the matter whatsoever. Some of those who feel unrepresented by the union might do so because they disagree with the policy and campaign decisions the union has taken. It is more likely, though, that most of these students see the union as a bubble they cannot enter. This isn’t to say that many union representatives don’t put the time and effort they feel is necessary to support students, or that they all see the union as a means of personal gains. Attitudes suggest, however, that energy spent on increasing engagement and making students aware of what the union actually does may be misdirected.
During elections cycles candidates spend so much time talking about the issue of engagement when in fact, if all of the sabbatical officers, part-time officers (PTO), faculty convenors and union members are representing the students as they’ve been elected to do, the general student population should be able to feel the effects of the union’s work without having to be engaged with the union.
TCDSU has shown before that it can take direct, political action that gets to the heart of matters most affecting all students, such as the Book of Kells blockade last semester. For eight hours, roughly two dozen students across the day blocked the entrance to College’s cornerstone tourist attraction – approximately 0.15% of the student population. However, their efforts resulted in the Book of Kells shutting down, costing College thousands in tourist revenue. The protest, along with other lobbying, also resulted in College scrapping the 2% rent increase they had planned for Trinity accommodation. That action will be felt by all students living in Trinity accommodation next year regardless of whether they are engaged with the union, some of whom aren’t even in College yet.
The political branch of union works, however, can also often devolve into administrative debates that go over students’ heads, including students closest to the union. Several union council meetings this year have been dominated by debates about changing the political remit of the union, allowing it to take harder and more radical stances than the union currently allows. While the union is in dire need of constitutional changes and support for these changes was shown through a student-driven petition of 500 signatures, these debates around the political nature of the union were consistently driven by the same voices. Many class representatives at council meetings on behalf of entire course years often did not take part in these discussions, resulting in voices unheard and students feeling like they wasted two hours of their lives in the Stanley Quek lecture theatre. Failing to engage from within the union will only make it more insular. And if class representatives themselves don’t feel represented, what is left for students looking from the outside?
TCDSU should not abandon its political aims or fail to address administrative issues; a union exists to push back against the crushing weight of housing, the cost of living and much more and it can only do so when its institutions are solid. However, the union should remind more students that this is not all the union does. Not all representation for students requires protests that will generate national attention or debates about overhauling the union. In many cases, what is most effective in getting students on board with the union is the day-to-day, often thankless, work behind the scenes, which often risks being overshadowed by politics.
The roles of education and welfare and equality officers exemplify this. Much of their day-to-day work focuses on individual student case work – fighting for extensions, deferrals, dealing with student grievances, even being a shoulder for students to cry on in times of crisis. While academic and welfare issues can often be traced back to political issues, this grunt work is extremely important work on a very individual level, even if it is often not measured in the statistics we hear. Sometimes the students that reach out to these officers for help haven’t even voted in sabbatical elections. The role of a sabbatical officer is to represent all students, regardless of if they’ve voted in the election or even if they know who the sabbatical officers are. If officers are doing this well far more students are actually “engaged” with the union than voting statistics would imply.
A good union doesn’t rely on members to be fully engaged with every little thing it does. It recognises that the good it does should be felt by the maximum number of students possible regardless of whether those students know or care about TCDSU. A good union is one in which engagement doesn’t only mean seats in chairs and bodies at protests, but it means the students who simply go to lectures everyday and go home again know they too are represented. When they have peers that represent them in the union, sabbatical officers to go to when needed and their lives in College are improved by the union’s actions, that is enough. While fighting the good fight for students and bringing the needed changes to the union’s administrative issues, TCDSU must also ensure their members know there’s more to the union than a good protest.
In all these debates about union engagement sometimes it feels like TCDSU members want more engagement in the union not so students are more represented but instead so there are more students who can give them a pat on the back. The entire student population is never going to have the will or the desire to engage with the union. However as long as they can feel the changes coming from the work the union does, both political and individual, that is enough.
