Buster Whaley, a fourth year PPES student, had never done an interview before. But then, this campaign is full of firsts for him, as he takes on the mammoth task of campaigning for the second most senior position in Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU): the education officer.
While he is an outsider to the union, Whaley is an active participant in student life. Currently the co-editor of TN2 magazine, he has previously been involved with Misc. Magazine and Trinity FM, where he co-hosted the Weather and Traffic radio show.
Whaley does not see his lack of union experience as a detriment to his campaign: “I’ve never played an active role in the SU, but the majority of students haven’t… That’s no criticism of the current union, but it is undeniable that engagement is low.”
As evidence of this lack of engagement, he pointed to last month’s referendum in which saw just 801 students turning out to vote.
If one takes Whaley’s word for it, his is reflective of the average student experience. Whaley is fully transparent about the fact that he is not quite sure about how the inner mechanisms of the Union work, and acknowledges that there will be a learning curve for him compared to his more experienced competitor Conchúr Ó Cathasaigh. He is positive about his prospects nevertheless, implying that a fresh view within the Union might be needed.
With no experience within TCDSU, one has to wonder; why run for such a challenging position as the Education Officer? Whaley’s answer is simple: he has seen problems and he wants to fix them.
He regards the role of Education Officer as the ideal vantage point from which to meaningfully enact change, being responsible for the academic well being of all students. As such, he has employees of the DisAbility Services working on his campaign to inform him of a perspective “I have no direct experience with,” but wants to represent.
If elected, Whaley’s top priority will be to fight for the introduction of modular billing. As it currently stands, if a student fails a single module and the resits, the student is then forced to make a decision between paying to repeat a full year or going off books.
“Neither option is good [enough] for students,” Whaley says. If a student cannot afford to repeat a year, he argues,“the consequences of going off books are so extreme”.
“All it takes is one mistake, that could be entirely circumstantial, and it completely upends your life.”
Witnessing the effects of this process in his personal life, Whaley decided enough was enough. “If someone had changed this system years ago, all of my friends’ lives wouldn’t be impacted so greatly.”
Modular billing, the solution Whaley believes in, is the proposal to introduce a system by which students can “pay-per-module, while still progressing to the next year.” Whaley thinks that this could avoid the isolation and financial hardship which can accompany going off books.
“One minute you’re a student and you’re on track to graduate … you’re looking for jobs, internships, you have friends. But if you go off book it’s not the same, especially if you’re an international student and you can’t renew your permit to stay.”
On whether this is an issue which only affects international students, Whaley was emphatic that this is an issue which threatens all student’s lives. He also emphasised that it does not have to be this way.
Whaley is not the first person to think this. In fact, modular billing was first introduced in 2018, but was scrapped in response to a student protest (a camp out in the Dining Hall) over the proposal to finance the policy by charging students supplemental exam fees.
Whaley admired the students’ protest and was similarly inspired by the current Union’s campaigns involving direct action; “for example, with the postgrad fees campaign outside the Book of Kells, it only took 30 students to have a massive impact!”
When asked what is to prevent a similar breakdown in negotiations from happening again as in 2018, Whaley said that “there is more of a consensus among staff and students that [modular billing] is a good idea”.
“The [current system] just doesn’t make sense from an academic perspective,” he added.
This is perhaps an idealistic hope for change, given that almost all elected education officers since 2018 mention modular billing in their manifestos; a fact that Whaley himself pointed out. In his view, though, Whaley’s predecessors may have been somewhat overly ambitious.
“You can only accomplish so much in a year … I think focusing on one or two key things is my approach, even if it might be a bit different.”
Whaley is quick to emphasise the terms ‘tangible’, ‘widespread’ and ‘meaningful’ when discussing his manifesto, and what could be more ubiquitously meaningful than food? Whaley proposes that the campus needs another student run café/dining hall, emphasising the lack of access to affordable food on campus.
He proposes the newly agreed upon Student Hub (formerly the Science Gallery) as a site for this new student dining experience. When asked if that was not close to the already existing SU Café in Goldsmith Hall, Whaley responded that “the SU Café provides an essential service, but it can’t be expected to cater for the demands of all 20,000 students.”
His envisioned new café/dining hall would simply be providing students more choice for affordable meals, and “presumably stay open later” than the SU Café.
The added benefit of providing more flexible student employment on campus is also a contributing factor for Whaley, who is conscious of students who work and study. He also wishes to see College grant deadline extensions to students on “work related” grounds.
While Whaley lacks the experience of many former Education Officers, he remains staunch that he is the best candidate for the role: “If you see a problem that you think should be changed, and think maybe [you] can make a difference and are passionate, that should be enough! You shouldn’t have to have two years of administrative experience, you should be able to try.” And try he intends to.
