Doctorate Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Institution.
Written by Scott Green.
Co-signed by: Morgan Queeny, Alex Coughlan, Hayley Little, Kenny Cooke, Ciara Murphy, Meave Arnup, Megan Brogan, Raymond Fox, Adhna Nic Dhonnchadha, Mark Graydon, Oissine Moore, Eoin Walker, Roshan George, Finn Mac Muiris, Charlene Rodriguez, Nicola Murphy, Kayleigh Hogan, Laura Doyle, Seoirsín Bashford, Connor Coates, Deborah Malone, Sabrina Vaughan, Ciaran Guy.
Poor communication with students.
A seeming unwillingness to listen to the student body in its entirety.
Far reaching decisions made in meetings that only a select few have access too.
These are just some of the qualities that, this year, the Union and the University have shared. It has been increasingly difficult to find the differences between how the University and the Students’ Union have operated.
A damning event has happened; the Union has itself become one with the Institution.
The Union’s behavior this year has reeked of said attitude. This idea that because the Union has always been there and always successful, the Union believes that it will continue to do so, regardless of its actions. This isn’t the reality.
In truth the Union has been shown up on many fronts; their lack of an environmental protest has only been further highlighted by their self-serving show of support to the “School Strike for Climate Change” by merely being present with SU flags, absent of signs of support for the cause itself either on our campus, or helping the secondary schools to rally.
On campus, a dedicated cohort of students have managed to start serious reform on the University’s’ disciplinary committee and while individuals from the Union have been of assistance, the Union itself failed to recognize the poor disciplinary process for what it is: a danger to students. People in the Union have even joked that the only previous union-work done on this front was the running of an awareness campaign. While on the surface this could be witty, it reveals that the Union knew of the system and sabbatical officers have lamented its flaws, but still failed to do anything about it. Therefore, leaving a group of wronged students to take matters into their own hands — and the student body is lucky that they did.
Even in terms of developing their own policy, there has been no substantial progress or update on the implementation of the highly-anticipated carry-over modules that last year’s Education Officer Andrew Forde championed to a great deal of support.
The Union has also failed to capitalise on the huge political investment in the Repeal campaign, presenting a wholly lacklustre voter registration campaign this year by comparison. This despite the fact that many have gone out of their way to stress how important the European and local elections are to students.
As a representative body it should not be possible to hide these repeated systematic failures behind the meager success achieved, but that is what the Union has tried to do.
The Union’s main campaign this year has been based around a lack of seating on campus. While this is an issue, it languishes with microwaves and water coolers in terms of importance — both in the grand scheme of things, and on where it should be on the Unions list of priorities.
The Union, of course, should be dealing with these literal ‘on the ground’ issues, but not to the extent that focus is drawn away from national and even global issues.
This narrow and fictitious view of what students care about and what the Union should focus on has lead to an inevitable and — if we are speaking honestly — deserved disconnect from the student body. This disconnect was never more apparent than the record breakingly low voter turnout for all of the voting that took place during SU elections during second semester.
On the ground you would never be more than two pigeon hops from being able to find a student who is disgruntled with the modus operandus of the Union this year. This discontent has only grown from the beginning of the year. Many students feel as though the Union is a body that wouldn’t welcome criticism and, even if they were ready to accept it, there is no easy way to voice your concerns to them directly.
On top of this, students find it hard to even know where to start with the Union. It volleys between lofty promises and tangible on the ground action, making it difficult to track its progress.
Disconnect breeds disillusion and this disillusion has manifested itself in a Union that cannot be regulated properly, cannot be trusted and most frighteningly cannot be regarded as a real avenue for fixing student issues.
The Union has monthly officer reports to aid accountability but they are buried in a website nearly as hostile and inaccessible as the university site the Union curses. Surplus to that the content varies from officer to officer and there would appear to be very little consequence for missing reports as several officers have missed at least one report and a few that have missed more, even reaching the constitutional quota of three: a clause that is supposedly supposed to trigger an automatic resignation.
This will serve as your introduction to selective accountability, something the union has become a bit of a specialist in over the course of this year.
If you were to ask, you would be told that the Union is answerable to the student body. But, because that is too large a group, they are ultimately held to account by their elected class reps during their monthly class rep council. And make no mistake — while they now refer to it as SU council, it has become such an foreboding and exclusionary space that even class reps haven’t felt comfortable showing up.
For evidence of this you must look no further than two examples, the first a cancelled council that failed to make quorum this semester and second the last council of this semester where the end portion was taken up by reps lamenting the way that council had been run this year and how they felt they had little to no power.
This hardly sets an inspiring precedent for the how the Union is held accountable to any standard let alone an acceptable one.
The AGM on the 16th of May, a final opportunity to put the Union under the microscope, was scheduled not only after the academic year was over, but also the exam period. The desire for it was expressed as far back as October.
This is further evidence that the Union is simply not as in tune with the student body as it wants to be. More worryingly still, nowhere near as in tune as it should be. The AGMs timing should be revealing of a hard truth to the union: openness doesn’t matter a damn if there is no one around to see it.
We criticise our national politicians for shadowy behaviour and an unwillingness to take responsibility, the Union should not and cannot expect to get away for this same behaviour.
I’m sure this seems like I am holding the Union to an incredibly high standard. I doubt that. But suppose that I am: ask yourself who decides what is the correct standard to hold the Union to?
What are the measures for its success? Engagement? A fail. Voter turnout? Another fail. Meaningful Protests? A pass by compensation at best.
It is better to hold the Union to a high standard, so even if they fail to rise to these standards, they perform adequately. Unlike this year, where the Union has self-regulated and failed. We are supposed to be united in holding the University to account. We have become so institutionalized and inept as to need someone to hold us ourselves to account.
What does that say about a Union? At the very least, it sinks down all of the spare but passable work we have done.
The Union should be a fighting body, it should never be shying away from any issue which affects students. It should be protecting them at all costs, not leaving us to fend for ourselves. The Union should be on every front tackling things from lecturers not dealing with individual LENS reports, right up to combating the idea the idea that students are little more than a stream of revenue, as well as everything in between.
People should feel comfortable engaging with the Union. They should feel confident enough to run for its positions. The Union should be a place of belonging, a safe space for its students, a home for activists of every caliber but also students with only a casual interest.
If a Union can barely scrape together an executive for this coming year how could it possibly regard its current one as a success?
A Union should garner support, be championed, be vocal both in protest and celebration, fight battles even if it is apparent it may lose — and all because the students need that. The Union should at the very least be something that the students’ want and this year none of that has transpired. Accountability shouldn’t be an afterthought. Engagement isn’t an election buzzword but should instead be a necessity. The trust between a Union and its students shouldn’t be betrayed.
From top to bottom the Union has been disappointing. Proof of that can be found in the making of this very article, and that this isn’t the only article of its kind. A year in review should never end in bitter tears or anger but this years has. I am one of those most disappointed by this.
The fact of the matter is this: the fire and passion I’m using now should be reserved for use against the University, not to light a fire under the ass of my own Union.
I don’t hate the Union. Hell, I don’t even dislike the Union.
But this year it has made itself very hard to love.
“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable”- Moliere
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