Next year’s Students’ Union is set to have a strong focus on sexual and mental health awareness, after the 2014/2015 DCU SU Executive was elected last Friday.
Having previously spoken out about his experience with depression, incoming DCU SU President Kenneth Browne is keen to bust stigma around mental health issues.
He also believes lecturers should have to attend presentation workshops to ensure they can communicate their message effectively to students.
Final year Communications student Eve Kerton will succeed Lorna Finnegan as Welfare Officer and described at last week’s SU hustings how she wants to build on Finnegan’s work on sexual health and wants “to make having a sore penis the same as having a sore thumb”.
With further cuts to university programmes a real possibility, incoming Education Officer Gary Gillick has said he would work to ensure “correct liaison with higher authorities” but reminded the student body that the representative roles carry “limited authority”.
The sabbats will be joined on the SU Executive by the newly elected convenors. They are Science & Health Convenor, Kim Sweeney; Engineering & Computing Convenor, Danny Walsh; Business School Convenor, Jack Butterly; and Humanities & Social Sciences Convenor, Peadar O’ Goill.
Ross McCarrick who was elected Clubs Officer and Lindsay Butler who was elected Societies Officer will also take seats on the SU Executive. Brian Harman was elected the Postgrad Officer.
The establishment of a new student centre at DCU was also given the green light by students in the referendum which ran concurrent to the SU elections.
In a massive endorsement for the planned four-storey extension to the Hub, the ‘Yes’ side received 2139 votes while the ‘No’ side received just 186 votes in last week’s student vote.
Sarah Bermingham
Image Credit: Nicola Leddy
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