Alice MacPherson has been elected as the Education Officer of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) this evening. MacPherson received 85.4 per cent of the vote, with just 430 students voting to re-open nominations.
On Monday The University Times, who polled 1,005 people over two days, predicted that MacPherson would win on the first count with 87.9% of the vote.
MacPherson, a fourth-year English and history student, ran on the platform of engagement, diversity in leadership and support for Erasmus and off-campus students. She featured a particularly strong manifesto and campaign presence distinguishing her as one of the more noticeable uncontested candidates. A former class representative and current convenor for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, MacPherson stood out at hustings due to her extensive knowledge of the Trinity Education Project and Student Partnership Policy, topics that threw many candidates in other races.
Central to her manifesto was a focus on enhancing engagement in the union, particularly given that this year saw four out of six races uncontested. She pledged to be “intersectional” in her approach, prioritising women, trans students and students with disabilities. MacPherson promised to ensure greater accessibility for students with disabilities, with her manifesto pledging student spaces that are more accessible as well as off-campus spaces that would cater for “many different types of learners”.
MacPherson also focused on the need for greater support for students on Erasmus and students going on Erasmus, noting that one solution would be to introduce Erasmus representative. In terms of a long-term plan, MacPherson, hopes to create an “entirely new system of representation, where we have a representative student from our college in each of the colleges we are sending people to”. She also promised Skype office hours.
In last year’s education race, Dale Whelehan, was deemed elected on the first count with 2,083 votes or 59.4 per cent of the vote, beating the only other candidate, Patrick Higgins. Both this year and last saw the education race gain the highest numbers of undecided votes, at 43 per cent and 40 per cent of voters unsure of their votes, respectively. That the trend continued this year, despite there being just one candidate running, suggests that students are not fully certain of who they would trust their education with.
