A total of 270 people have signed up to run for class rep elections this year making it the biggest class rep election to date. The elections which are due to take place next Tuesday and Wednesday (October 3rd and 4th) will be hotly contested in a number of constituencies. UCDSU Education Rob Sweeney was delighted with the turnout and paid credit to Campaigns and Communications Barry Murphy (pictured above, left) for his hard work. Speaking to the Tribune this evening he said “I think a lot of credit goes to Barry as C+C officer for getting so many people out around Fresh Fest and the way he was promoting class reps.”
“I think people also channelled what anger that they had. We made an effort to say to people that this is a ground up organisation and that if you’re upset as they’re perfectly entitled to be, to run for class rep, to channel that upset and anger into making the union a better place and having your decisions become the decisions of the union” he added making referring to the “Winging It” reprint controversy.
The nominations for graduate class reps has also seen an increase with a total of 34 people running for 26 seats. Unfortunately no candidates could be fielded for Health Science or PhD positions. Graduate officer Niall Torris was delighted with the turnout saying “I’m very pleased, we’ve definitely increased our numbers massively”. When Torris came into office, he redesigned the way that graduates were approached to run.
“I don’t think that graduates have the same interest in being a class rep as undergraduates do for a number of valid reasons on both sides, and I think that we needed to change our offering and the way we were presenting our offering and what we were actually offering to postgraduates. I think that the level of engagement we’ve received at the nomination end has vindicated that approach.”
Elections will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday and more information about the election process can be found here.
Rachel O’Neill – Editor
