Edmund Heaphy | Deputy Editor
Katie Crowther has been elected President of Trinity’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU), with 62 per cent of the vote, while Gianna Hegarty has been elected Vice-President, with 53 per cent of the vote.
Speaking just after she was elected, Crowther said: “I’m really excited for the future, and thank you very much for your votes”, saying that the election was a “real learning curve”.
Crowther’s election platform centred around improving relationships with College so she could lobby for an increase in provisions for postgraduate students, such as reaching out to the Global Relations Office to lobby for what she called an international “postgraduate network system”.
Crowther, an Intercultural Theology and Inter-religious Studies Masters student, previously served as the Events Officer of the GSU, and currently serves on its executive committee. She also previously served as Further Education Officer of NUS-USI, the representative union for students in Northern Ireland.
The President of the GSU sits on the College Board, the Graduate Students Committee and the Student Life Committee, and as of this year, the College Finance Committee. This year was the first year that the president of the union sat on the Finance Committee, following lobbying by the GSU and Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU). The Vice-President sits on University Council.
Hegarty, elected Vice-President, promised to advocate for the establishment of college-wide regulations for teaching assistants, such that their duties and compensation would be standardised across departments. She is currently completing a PhD on Irish refugee policy within the context of Ireland’s foreign policy objectives between 1935 and 1973. Both candidates discussed peer support and mental health initiatives. Meanwhile, issues facing PhD students were a common thread in this year’s elections.
At the GSU election hustings on Wednesday, TCDSU President, Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne, asked candidates about the relationship between TCDSU and the GSU, highlighting the lack of “even a memorandum of understanding” between the two unions. The GSU represents graduate students only, while TCDSU represents all students, although there is a distinct undergraduate focus to its work.
Both Crowther and Hegarty take office in July.
