Paul Glynn | Senior Staff Writer
The start of the new academic year at Trinity College has seen the appointment of a number of new members to the College Board. The new members commenced their term in office on the 25th August, the first Monday of Statutory Michaelmas Term, and will run until the 24th of August 2018.
The additions to the Board consist of Fellows, non-Fellow teaching staff, non-academic staff, student resentatives and external members. The Board is college’s primary decision-making body, and is made up of college figures including the Provost, Vice-Provost, college’s Chief Financial Officer and student representatives.
Four new Fellow Professors were elected to the Board: Peter Coxon, Sylvia Draper, Brian Lucey and Diarmuid Rossa Phelan. Professor Coxon is the current Head of Department and a professor in Trinity College’s department of Geography. Professor Draper is a professor in Chemistry and current Head of the College’s Chemistry department.
Professor Lucey is Professor of Finance at TCD’s School of Business, as well as a financial columnist for the Irish Examiner who wrote a number of pieces opposing the ill-fated identity initiative. Professor Rossa Phelan is an Assistant Professor at Trinity’s School of Law, as well as Senior Counsel at the Bar Council of Ireland.
As well as the four teaching Fellows, Two new non-Fellow members of the academic staff – Professors Catherine McCabe and Aidan Seery – were also elected to board positions. McCabe is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Nursing, while Dr. Seery is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education. Sheila Dunphy, a Systems Analyst at Trinity with the College’s Information Systems Services, is the only new non-academic staff member to be elected to the Board for the 2014-18 term and also served on the board in 2013-14 following a by-election victory in September.
Olive Braiden has been re-appointed to the Board for the 2014-2018 term as an external member. Braiden previously held this position on the Board from 2010 to 2014. She has held many advisory and committee roles during her career, such as former chair of the Arts Council of Ireland from 2003 to 2008, 10 years as Director of the Rape Crisis Centre, and establishing Chair of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, as well as board positions in the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and the Public Service Benchmarking Body, among others.
Four new student representatives were also elected to the board, to serve for the duration of the 2014-15 year. They are Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne, Ian Mooney and Katie Byrne, who are respectively the President, Welfare Officer and Education Officer of Trinity College Students’ Union, as well as Megan Lee, President of TCD’s Graduate Students’ Union.
