Leftist students for social progress.
Here are the templates to email the Irish Universities Association (IUA) to ask them to reconsider in-person exams for Semester 1 and to instead opt for open-book, flexible time constraint and keyboard-mediate exams. Students, professors, everyone is encouraged to join!
Yesterday’s press release has been sent to all Heads of Schools and all Directors of Learning at Trinity.
László Molnárfi
According to documents from College Board’s meeting on the 19th of May 2021, two possible locations to temporarily house the Book of Kells interim exhibition were presented and approved as part of the Old Library Redevelopment Project (OLRP). The tentative locations agreed at Board were Library Square and New Square.
However, between June and August of 2021, the Bursar, Chief Operating Officer of the Corporate Service Division and Estates & Facilities of Trinity College Dublin engaged with Dublin City Council (DCC), who allegedly deemed these two locations unsuitable, and proposed the location of College Park instead. To date, no paperwork or correspondence surrounding this decision has been made available for scrutiny.
The idea of College Park as a location, as yet comes with no formal application and extent of the engagement is unclear, but College was ‘guided that planning permission would be unlikely for either location [the Library Square and New Square’. It seems to have been more like a conversation than a formal engagement process with no concrete evidence as to why the originally proposed two locations were unsuitable.
“I have asked the Bursars’ Office for clear data surrounding the decision-making process between College and DCC, but to date I have not received a response,” says TCDGSU President Ms. Giséle Scanlon. Trinity Fox, in light of this lack of engagement between College and the TCDGSU, has submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to find out information about how College and the DCC arrived at this suggested new location.
Stakeholders directly impacted by this decision had heard nothing of this change in location for four months until the Estates Policy Committee (EPC) on the 15th of October 2021, at which Ms. Scanlon was the sole dissenter of the proposal, and raised deep concerns about the impact this structure would have on-campus sports, mental health and the well-being of everyone, including those working in the buildings adjacent. The EPC is “a Principal Committee of the Board responsible for the review of policy in the area of the development and operation of the College’s sites” and “the meeting was led to believe that extensive engagement had taken place between the Bursars’ Office and stakeholders, who would be deeply impacted,” she says, “I believe committee members were misled, as there had not been adequate engagement with stakeholders. Our own engagement with the GSU, similar to the, consisted of a brief meeting with the Provost”.
Because EPC does not have a representative from on-campus sports clubs or the TCDSU, Ms. Scanlon bore the sole responsibility of representing the student voice, and dissented, because she felt there had not been enough consultation with her members and other clubs across campus.
“It became clear to me that the official slides presented at the EPC did not have the correct pitch sizes. When I left the meeting, as a matter of transparency, I Tweeted my concern and mentioned that I had dissented. Within an hour, DUAFC (football club) expressed surprise that this location was even an option, as the proposed measurements do not cater to football appropriately. I was deeply concerned that neither DUHAC (athletics club) nor DUAFC and the DUCC (cricket club) had not been consulted before the meeting on the 15th. I talked to postgraduates who are members of these clubs and they confirmed that not only had no one spoken to them, but the captains of these clubs had not heard a single thing about College Park as a proposed venue”, she says.
Essentially, Ms. Scanlon’s Tweet about her dissent is the way the wider student body discovered the new proposed location.
Ms. Scanlon isn’t the only one to have voiced feelings of discontent with the new location and the lack of stakeholder engagement. It is reported that trade unions oppose the structure’s location as well, due to it taking away natural light from those working and studying in the neary buildings and libraries.
Mr. Raymond O’Malley, President of DUAFC (football club), said in a written statement to Trinity Fox that “The prospect of not having home matches at College Park for up to 4 years is unthinkable for the Club,” adding that “in our opinion, Library Square or New Square would be superior locations and the temporary nature of the proposed structure would ensure no permanent impact on the setting of either square or the adjoining buildings, which are protected structures. Dublin City Council has recently granted a temporary permission for Covid related structures in New Square that were permitted to remain in place for up to 3 years or whenever the covid restrictions ceased, whichever is sooner. In other words, the Council has accepted the principle of a temporary structure at these alternative locations, so their apparent resistance now to this proposal at those locations is inconsistent”.
Ms. Laura Brennon, President of DUHAC (the athletics club), said in a written statement to Trinity Fox that while they recognize the importance of the redevelopment project, they “are deeply concerned about the impact the proposal of a temporary structure on College Park would have on student sport and recreation. As a club, this is our main training ground, and we simply cannot afford to lose this facility. We pride ourselves in being an easy and accessible club where recreational runners can train alongside world class athletes and College Park is at the heart of this,” and pushed for alternative locations to be found for the Interim Exhibition.
Dr. Ian Morrison, coach at the athletics club, added that “College Park is the heart and soul of our club in DUHAC. [..] [It] is where National Champions and beginners can be observed in training, coaching and developing and our only guaranteed time on grass for most of the athletes. We carefully use the entire perimeter respecting the inside soccer pitch and cricket crease. This will be destroyed by annexing a portion of College Park. Our running area will be massively reduced, to the point that no long intervals could be done without risking injury. We would have to run over cricket and soccer areas recurrently damaging the inside surface and we could not share College park on training nights as we currently do. [..] In the 1990s DUCAC and Trevor West the then Chair fought to stop development on College Park when the College proposed it be sacrificed. This “temporary” structure for 3 years will destroy the grass permanently and College’s record of temporary structures is sadly poor”.
On the 16th of October 2021, DUCAC (representative body for all sports clubs), who have so far shown no willingness to come out against the plan, sent an email to affected sport club captains inviting them to a meeting with DUCAC Chair Mr. Matthew Simons (who ran on a campaign of listening to sports clubs) and Head of Sports and Recreation Ms. Michelle Tanner. The email writes “We will also be providing you with some lunch so please come hungry, ” and essentially issued a gag order on sports clubs, saying that there is a “second meeting [with the Provost]”, until which “we would appreciate [..] that you do not comment to the Press (University Times, Trinity News) about any questions that may be directed to you”.
The EPC feeds into the College Board, at which the final decision is expected to be taken on the 3rd of November 2021 on the location of the Interim Exhibition. A widely-shared petition was launched by Ms. Scanlon in opposition with already over 1,600 signatures at the time of writing, and was backed by independent activist group Students4Change. DUFAC has also come out in support of the petition, with DUHAC and DUCC also voicing their opposition.
Mr. O’Malley also commented on the petition, saying that “College Park needs to be protected for all Clubs and Students and not hijacked for tourists”.
Ms. Aisling Ahern, alumni of the College and former Ladies Harriers Captain wrote that she is “saddened and disappointed that the College would consider the wonderful facility of College Park dispensable. It is absolutely essential as the heart and soul of DUHAC and had contributed endlessly to the fitness, health and happiness of members in Trinity Athletic’s 150 years of existence. […] Knocking the park out of use for 3 years is unacceptable and would damage the long standing culture and tradition of Trinity College Athletics”.
Another student who signed the petition lamented that “greedy developers are even here [in] one of the oldest schools”, echoing sentiments across College that corporatization is slowly destroying third-level educational institutions.
Documents relating to the Exhibition Pavilion also show a proposal to transform New Square into a ‘wellbeing space’ for students and staff, which is understood by some as an attempt to placate student representatives, some of whom, like DUCAC and TCDSU, have so far shown no willingness to oppose the proposed location despite their constituency’s democratic will. It also mentions that the School of Engineering, Provost Linda Doyle’s research area, are interested in using the space, under the heading ‘longer term potential benefits’, which details its possible uses for longer than 3 years.
Neither the College Bursar, the Head of Sports and Recreation, TCDSU nor the DUCAC Chair was available for comment as of the publication of this article. Trinity’s Director of Public Affairs and Communications, Mr. Tom Molloy declined to comment on whether there was engagement from College with the Old Library Redevelopment Steering Committee, a working group of the Library, with regards to the new location of College Park.
In a written statement to the University Times, Trinity Media Relations Ms. Officer Catherine O’Mahony said that “College has made commitments to ensure proper engagements are made throughout the project for impacted clubs and individuals. College is looking to work with the community to ensure the Old Library project proceeds with the support of all stakeholders and for us to minimise the impact of the location for the interim exhibition on sport and recreational activities”.
Dear undergraduates, dear postgraduates, dear students,
As we approach reading week, Trinity College Dublin’s constant disregard for our needs continues to decimate our community. Our mental health and the impact of an uncertain and compromised educational experience again this year sees many of our community struggle. The time has come for action, the time has come for us to demand a partial refund.
Students 4 Change (S4C) alongside the Trinity college Dublin Graduate Students’ Union (TCDGSU) are organizing a joint Undergraduate-Postgraduate protest on the 16th of October to show our support for anyone who is feeling forgotten and anxious in these times.
We will be marching from TCD’s Front Square starting at 4pm to the Dáil, where we will join other groups in Ireland to protest against our institutions in public. You are invited to join as we challenge our College publicly and demand our contractual rights, make our voices heard for in-person lectures or refunds and call out Trinity’s disregard for our mental health.
We demand that Management:
.
This list is to be understood as a reiteration and an expansion on the earlier one, not as a replacement.
With no significant changes made in the Budget 2022 to publicly fund the third-level sector or accommodation, we are faced with a continuing academic year which will bring continued uncertainty and anxiety. Our mental health is severely impacted; we are living in hostels in groups, unable to afford better accommodation, we are struggling to keep up again this year and we’re aggrieved that we were lured to Dublin, when we could have stayed with our families and learnt online for the first semester at home? If we have no face-to-face learning currently on campus why are we here?
We have been cheated again like last year’s students (2020/21) who had the worst student experience in history and are currently being refused refunds. The GSU has pressed College hard for six months for percentage refunds for the students of 2020/21 working on real data from a Survey conducted by the GSU.
The decision to call this protest has not been taken lightly, but was made due to our institution’s neglect of students’ needs and specifically in light of no real progress being made with regards to the issue of #ReturnOrRefund and lacking mental health support.
Firstly, both undergraduate and postgraduate students have expressed in clear, democratic and justified terms a demand for a refund of the student contribution fee from 2020-2021.
For undergraduates, this is evidenced by TCDSU Council’s motion in April where the union adopted a position in support of refunds for the academic year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. For postgraduate students, the GSU “Postgraduate Student Experience Survey” of last year, in which 1,246 students took part, expressed that 78% support refunds as compensation for the reduced value for money, e.g. lack of access to services (e.g. paying the sports centre contribution fee throughout the whole pandemic and not getting access), during the pandemic. At the April 14th GSU EGM, postgraduate students voted for a motion demanding refunds.
Across the three faculties of AHSS, EMS, and HS, postgraduate students expressed above 90%+ disapproval of the overall student experience across the aspects of learning, social life and financial matters.
Similarly, students all the way from Freshers to PhD candidates are dissatisfied with the chaotic and essentially non-existent re-opening plan of our College for the Semester 1 of the 2021-2022 academic year. Just recently, 200-300 protested on Front Square, while thousands more interacted with the social media posts of the organizers as a general outpouring of discontent swept across campus that the experience of last year looks set to be repeated for Semester 1, again without any compensation.
This is also evidenced by an independent survey, in which 866 students took part in as of September 17th 2021. Out of those 866, 83% said that they were dissatisfied with our College’s reopening and 42% said that this affected them financially, as for example they had to take up expensive accommodation in expectation – and eventual disappointment – of an in-person learning experience. Despite the first independently-organized protest, College still looks to not have their ducks in a row, as evidenced by TCDSU’s open-letter on the necessity of re-timetabling and the lack of a plan from the Provosts’ Office.
Secondly, and closely tied with the the issue of #ReturnOrRefund, is the mental health of students, staff and of our community.
In 2020-2021, the counselling services of our College averaged, at peak times – build up to exams – over 100 on the waitlist and several weeks to see a 1-1 counsellor. For the 11.4% or so of the total student population who relied on this service during the trying times of the pandemic, this could have, and probably has led to long-term negative consequences. Not only were students used as cash cows and had no educational experience, there were no robust support systems in place to make last year manageable for many students stuck at home. Many reported increased feelings of anxiety, but not just students, staff reported work intensification (65%), loneliness (43%) and emotional exhaustion (51%).
Recently, it has come to light that our College’s re-opening plan will leave many students doing their exams in-person, in the RDS, as they continue to have online lectures. The Senior Lecturer also said on the 12th of October 2021 in an email that exams and Schols will be in-person. This proposal is an affront to students. After one-and-a-half years of online learning and digital note taking, many students will suddenly be told to sit in the RDS as if nothing happened. Outrageously, this plan has no regard for the immense stress that our 17,000 or so students faced last year, and with the same disregard to student wellbeing has absolutely no support structures in place. Similarly, postgraduate students who are employed as TAs, and professors in general, have recently reported that they are under ‘unprecedented pressure’ with the continuation of online learning due to the technological complexities associated with lecture delivery – our College could easily invest in automatic lecture recording software in situ, which would ease stress for the whole community, but this would require investment.
Regarding recent developments, Budget 2022 provides a 5 million € investment for mental health, but this is not enough. According to the USI’s pre-budget submission for 2022, they asked for 28 million €, and according to them, “a third of students at 33.94% feel that their mental health has worsened as a result of COVID-19”. This is to ensure that student to counsellor and student to mental health nurse ratio is 1 per 1000 at 17.5 and 11 million € respectively. There are also non-budgetary asks in USI’s document, such as adopting the holistic Lancet Model, which are also very important.
Our College has 8 counsellors at the moment, which is roughly 1 per 2000. Out of the 5 million €300,000 was given to our College, but this is not anywhere near enough to fix the ratio. This is the government’s fault, but College should be speaking up more loudly and not pretending that our counselling services are in good shape. They could equally re-prioritize their budget away from capital projects (i.e. fancy buildings, which, in this time of crisis, are a luxury) to the community’s needs.
Recently, an article in the University Times claimed that our College has cleared the waitlist on their counselling services. According to the Provost’s email to us on September 22nd 2021, the waitlist was clear a couple weeks back too. It has 40+ days during the build up to exams, which is the issue. “We have no one on the waiting list” does not mean a lot if support systems fail when they are actually needed.
In essence, our College has consistently put increased revenues in front of our community’s well-being. It is time to make our voices heard and demand that we be treated as humans, not as cash cows.
We thus invite you to march with us on the 16th of October at 4pm, starting from TCD’s Front Square, as we demand that the College provide us a proper educational experience, refunds for last year and Semester 1, and that they take into consider students’ wellbeing and immediately invest in better mental health supports.
László Molnárfi, Chairperson, Students4Change +32 470583174
Gisèle Scanlon, President, Graduate Students’ Union +353864120444
Abhisweta Bhattacharjee, Vice-president, Graduate Students’ Union +918583981336
And press release GSU:
Update 13/10/2021
The TCDGSU will be protesting with Students4Change and other groups on October 16th to seek justice for the lack of consideration visited on our members in 2020/2021/2022. We are protesting to highlight student mental health and the impact of an uncertain and compromised educational experience again this year which sees many of our community struggle. The Budget 2022 has spread resources too broadly and too widely. The government is out of touch with the student struggle and mental health reforms although welcome are well short of what we need. The allocation of mental health funds to Trinity College as part of budget 2022; how much is NEW investment or is most of the figure funding which is already allocated? Taking all of this into account…. The time has come for action, the time has come for us to protest and demand a partial refund.
Please see releases attached to this email:Please see the GSU PG Student Experience Feedback Survey 2020/21 Please see release in conjunction with Student4Change attached.
Mandate Motion 5 Partial Fee refund which has earned 623 votes; 23 votes not supporting (4%) and 600 votes supporting (96%), and the motion is deemed to have passed 14th April, 2021.
a. It is the position of the Graduate Students’ Union that Postgraduate students of Trinity College Dublin have been affected more than any contingent of Students within the College community.
b. There had been a promise of a blended approach to teaching throughout the year with at least some face-to-face tuition. In the vast majority of cases, the College has failed to provide what they promised in relation to this and offered full online programs instead of regular ones. As such Postgraduate students who elected to attend Trinity were sold one product and were in fact delivered an entirely different and gravely inferior one.
c. There were many periods throughout the Academic year in which it would have been feasible for College Students to attend small face-to-face classes, yet the College remained teaching online. Even now Primary and Secondary school students are attending classes while College students are being confined to home, many of them paying huge amounts for rented residence abroad, which has had a quantifiable impact on many individuals’ academic performance, academic motivation, personal health, and mental health.
d. The Irish Government itself acknowledges this quantifiable impact. This is why as part of Ireland’s Budget 2022, the Ministry for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science granted on December 2020 a €250 payment to all full-time EU students in publicly-funded higher education institutions, to acknowledge the impact this pandemic has had on third-level students.
e. Also, various College services that were paid by the students’ tuition fees, were not provided during this academic year, such as access to academic materials in libraries (manuscript rooms), access to the sports facilities, dining spaces, etc.
f. As such it is submitted that the College has a contractual obligation and a moral duty to reimburse students and partially return fees garnered from false advertising and failed contractual obligations of delivery of services and the agreed quality of services, or else shall no doubt be seen to be acting in bad faith with little or no regard for their students who paid an exorbitant amount to be effectively attending weekly webinars.
Dear TCD BDS, dear SU Citizenship Officer, dear SU Ethnic Minorities Officer, dear SU President,
I am writing as Chairperson of Students 4 Change on behalf of our Students 4 Peace campaign, and all the students in this campaign who are very concerned about Trinity College Dublin’s involvement with the war-industry.
Students 4 Peace brings together students fighting for the pacifist and humanitarian principles of Irish neutrality. One of our goals, namely that of making our College divest from war-related stocks, is also the aim of BDS and TCDSU. As of 2020, our College invests ~2.6 million euros into Arms and Weaponry manufacturers, such as BAE systems, Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Company through its endowment fund. These companies are used, for example, by the Israeli government to uphold their illegal colonial project on the territory of Palestine.
We are writing in essence to inform you of the next steps that Students 4 Change will take to make our College divest from their unethical investments in arms and warfare activities across the world. When we emailed Provost Linda Doyle in August, she was very forthcoming and informed us that she will convene a Committee on ethical investment the following month, with the involvement of a diverse range of representatives from College.
Since then, they have taken steps to divest from the fossil-fuel industry, but no news of the Committee and divestment from the war-industry. In addition to the news that our College has 2.6 million € invested in the war-industry, Students 4 Change has also uncovered that College has close research funding links with Mr. Declan Ganley, a multimillionaire who campaigned for anti-abortion in Ireland, is involved with the war-industry, and has close ties with Trump and the far-right.
I would like to note in particular, that Declan Ganley’s ex-Party, Libertas, allied itself with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a pro-Israel organization which claimed in 2013 that BDS is a “thinly-disguised effort to coordinate and complement the violent strategy of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim ‘rejectionists’ who have refused to make peace with Israel for over six decades, and to pursue a high-profile campaign composed of anti-Israel big lies to help destroy the Jewish State by any and all means”.
We propose, if our College does not take further steps by the end of Semester 1 towards ethical investment and ethically-sourced research, for you to join Students 4 Change in formally challenging our institution’s status as a ‘University of Sanctuary’. Currently, our College, despite its efforts and certain notable achievements, does not live up to the latter award which is given for work in promoting the integration, inclusion and welfare of refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants.
We are informing the Provosts’ Office of this plan, so that they have ample time to act.
From the attached document, here is a quote from the Irish branch of the ‘University of Sanctuary’ movement. Awards should not be awards for the sake of awards; they should be given for concrete and continued commitments to a set of ideals.
University of Sanctuary Ireland (UoSI) is an initiative to encourage and celebrate the good practice of universities, colleges and institutes welcoming refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants into their university communities and fostering a culture of welcome and inclusion for all those seeking sanctuary.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Best Regards,
László Molnárfi
Students 4 Change
Chairperson
is an alliance of Marxist and Anarchist students from Trinity College Dublin focused on the housing crisis in relation to student accommodation, Irish neutrality, SU reform and other matters of student politics. Go on our website students4change.eu, follow us on social media or email us at [email protected]!
And here is our email to Provost Linda Doyle.
Dear Provost Linda Doyle,
I am writing again as Chairperson of Students 4 Change to seek your official commitment and update on the steps taken towards policies on ethical investment and ethically-sourced research at Trinity College Dublin, including cutting all ties with Israel, Declan Ganley and divesting completely from the war-industry. We would like to thank you for your work on fulfilling our College’s pledge to divest from the fossil-fuel industry, but we believe there is more work to do on this front.
To reiterate again:
After discussing with members of Students4Change, we propose that if our College does not take further steps by the end of Semester 1 towards ethical investment and ethically-sourced research and provide an official commitment, decrying its links with Israel, the war-industry and Declan Ganley, that we will challenge our institution’s status as a ‘University of Sanctuary’. Currently, our College, despite its efforts and certain notable achievements, does not live up to the latter award which is given for work in promoting the integration, inclusion and welfare of refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants. Every day, lives are lost, families are destroyed and oppression continues to reign because of the military-war industry – we must actively fight against it, regardless of profits or the prestige of our College.
The prestige of our College should lay not in its research funding or links with business donors, but in its eternal commitment to virtues such as social reform, democracy, independent research and peace – most of these virtues are listed on our College’s mission statement as well.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Best Regards,
László Molnárfi
Students 4 Change
Chairperson
is an alliance of Marxist and Anarchist students from Trinity College Dublin focused on the housing crisis in relation to student accommodation, Irish neutrality, SU reform and other matters of student politics. Go on our website students4change.eu, follow us on social media or email us at [email protected]!
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