Candidate Timmy Crowe is a second-year Education and Training student who would make “fun” a priority throughout his year as president.
“We’re all here at a third-level institution but I also want to make everyone’s time here as enjoyable as possible and university life is really where you make your memories and friends and it’s setting you up for the working world afterwards,” he told The College View.
His ideas include having a shuttle bus home from town after nights out, large-scale events such as an end-of-year ball, sports day and barbeque as well as convincing Campus Residence to allow students to sign in guests after 11pm.
Crowe also wants to bring in a bus service for students living in student accommodation off campus to make their commute to college somewhat easier.
“People were asking me if it would be possible to introduce a bus service for students every half hour or every hour from Shanowen or from Hazelwood. And that would be something I would definitely look in to and work with the authorities in Hazelwood and Shanowen to work out a way because it’s a long walk from Hazelwood and I would really work my hardest to get that in place,” said Crowe.
He has promised to reach an agreement with Campus Residence so that students can sign in guests after 11pm at night. However, he does suspect there will be a charge for this.
“I’m assuming there would be a small charge. I’m not sure how much seeing as we want to get rid of silly charges, such as posters on walls, so we’ll have to see how that comes about when we’re working out with Campus Res. Although they are in DCU, they’re still a separate body in DCU so working with them would be just a bit more difficult,” he said.
Group gym memberships and discount cards are also priorities for the athlete, who represented Ireland at the European Indoor Championships last weekend.
Crowe hopes that gym memberships could be discounted to as little as €20.
“It’s a very big possibility. Hopefully, if you get ten students, or five students, there might be a twenty to thirty percent discount. The more students that you had, there would be a bigger discount. At the moment, I think it’s €135 per annum so I’d prefer to bring that way down to even if a student had to only pay €20 to €30 because fitness in Ireland is one of the worst in the leagues. Obesity is affecting one in four children these days and health is definitely a priority seeing as I’ve such a big background in sport,” he said.
The health of students is also a priority for the athlete, who promises to reduce the camps doctor’s fee to €10.
Crowe said, “It’s a non-profit service so I would actually have to lobby the doctors and I’d have to lobby the boards behind it to bring it back down to €10. In other universities like UL, Mary Immaculate, they’re all €10 so the €10 doctor charge is one thing that would definitely have to come back in.”
He also aims to “work more on scheduling so the doctors would need to work on a tighter schedule” in order to reduce waiting times to be seen by the doctor.
“We’re 12,000 students and we’re about to grow significantly. Doctors need to give people exact time slots unless there’s some serious case,” he said.
He also plans to hold fundraisers and apply for government funding to reopen psychiatric services for students.
In terms of education and careers, the second-year student aims to hold separate careers fairs for each faculty.
Crowe wants to “set it up in to different faculties so that it’s just not all at once and to fit it in around certain timetables in certain faculties.”
The second-year student entered the presidential election at the last minute, after being encouraged by Welfare candidate Domhnaill Harkin.
“Domhnaill actually inspired me to run. I have the utmost respect for Domhnaill and I think he is an amazing guy. I was going to go next year but I decided I’d go this year just because I want to be in that buzz that Domhnaill is bringing,” said Crowe.
Laura Colgan
Photo Credit: Timmy Crowe
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