An Interview with Sabrina Vaughan- Education Officer Candidate
By: Journalism, Media Society
Tags: Politics, Nuigalway

If Sabrina Vaughan was an animal, she would be a horse. Or is it a golden retriever? Horses can take you places, and she’s worked with them growing up, but golden retrievers are calming, reliable, playful and they don’t take things too seriously. Except issues pertaining to the education of students. For education, Airbud would slaughter Josh in a heartbeat.

Sabrina is a self-identified “reliable person”, with the bonus of being both determined and efficient. If in doubt, check her track record for the Students’ Union to date, where she’s worked as a part-time officer the last two years, and is currently serving as the Council Chairperson. “I’m determined,” she says. “If I set my mind to it, it will be done. If not this week, then by the end of my term.”

Greater commitment could not be asked for.

She defines the role of the education officer as one of visibility. Wherever you are – be it the moon or, further still, the ILAS building – Sabrina believes you should know who’s voicing your complaints. But one must ask whether her determination to make the SU more transparent does not clash with this desire for visibility. How see-through can the SU become before transparency equates with invisibility?

Sabrina is from rural Clare, a place so far flung from civilisation that there is nothing to be done there, apart from sipping pints and playing GAA. Determined to escape the drudgeries of this existence, Sabrina took up as many volunteering positions as she could upon coming to college, and it was as early as November 2016 that she realised she wanted to run for Education Officer.

“I’ve given so much to the roles I’ve taken so far,” she says, “and I’ve been balancing those with my degree because they were part-time. I want to bring myself to a full-time position so I can give it even more. I also just want to continue working with students – I love students!”

I ask her to summarise her manifesto with as much excitement as she can muster. In response, she asks me: “Have you ever had an exam that was worth 100% of the module?” My shudder as the ghost of exam-paper-past courses through me is affirmation enough. She says a setup like that shouldn’t be the case. “All modules should be continuous assessment, even if it’s only 10 or 15% outside the actual exam. It shouldn’t be this hard to implement. Lecturers are just lazy correcting work, I think. Sorry guys,” she says into my phone-turned-Dictaphone, “but you kinda are.”

Now that, in this interviewer’s opinion, is surely the truth.

“I knew an engineering student who was scheduled for eight exams and he straightaway decided to defer them all and my heart just broke for him. I want to implement this change for people like him.”

Other things that break Sabrina’s heart are people who like sweetcorn on pizza (guilty) and the general inaccessibility of the NUIG campus. With respect to the latter, she speaks of students with mobility issues who cannot gain access to the Bialann, and of students with ‘non-standard’ learning styles who are penalised by the assessment system. “Lecturers need to update their way of teaching and become more conscious of the language they use to ensure it is as inclusive and considerate as possible. They also need to be more approachable. A student who needs help in a class won’t come forward if the lecturer is aloof, especially if that student is shy.” Sabrina mentions how lecturers in the geography department have begun using clickers in their classes to help encourage attendance and participation. Presumably, students are trained to respond to the click, perhaps by building a diorama of a volcano or by listing off in reverse-alphabetical order all the counties of Ireland. The practice has been a long-standing feature in the film industry, where it is used to prompt dogs like Airbud to score basket after basket with only their snout. It seems only reasonable to extend this to the student populace.

Sabrina also highlights her desire to improve transitions for students who have been studying abroad for a year, or who have repeated a year with only a few modules and are now returning full-time. She mentions the use of negative marking in the Netherlands, something Irish students are neither warned of nor capable of understanding.

“WE NEED TO GET DOWN WITH THE KIDS! IT’S 2019. WE NEED TO GET WITH IT.”

Wise words, overall.

On a serious note, Sabrina is pushing for the introduction of more suicide awareness training on campus for both students and staff. Having lost a friend five years ago and since having taken a safeTALK course, she’s keen for others to receive the training, so that they might better be able to offer support to those around them. “It’s an invaluable experience, even if you never have to use it directly.”

Rating the environmental impact of her campaign, she notes that her leaflets are A5-sized and folded in half, so as to maximise the content displayed. They bear a QR code that links to her Facebook page, and feature the slogan, “Don’t bin me, pass me on.” I spotted a few later on in the waste-disposal section of the Bialann, and wondered at the literacy levels of this fine institute.

Something that will be binned under Sabrina’s rule as Education Officer, provided she gets the role, is pineapple on pizza: “I’ll eat a jar of pineapple, but I will not put it on pizza. In my opinion, fruit is sweet, and pizza is savoury – and sacred. My uncle is Italian, so if I ever put anything apart from pepperoni or margarita on my pizza… it’ll be ‘There’s the door, goodbye’.”

Fortunately, her calls for separatism are limited to pizza toppings, and when I ask if she identifies as a feminist she responds with an expression a distaste for labels but a passion for unity and empowerment: “I don’t know if I like sticking to terms or labelling myself, but I do want the same playing field across the board, for women, men, trans and non-binary people. Treat everyone the same way, you know? We’re all in this together after all.”

Troy Bolton would agree.

Her desire for comradery is so great that she declines to comment on who her greatest competitor is, other than to say that it is herself. Of her fellow candidates, she has only to say that they are great people with strong campaigns; RON, however, is noticeably absent from the sentiment.

In terms of her personal stance on issues beyond education and pizza, she is a dog person with a possible allergy to cats, and would count herself among those who are pro-choice, citing her belief that “the state should not have any opinion over my body” and that “abortions will happen no matter what, and that it’s better for them to be safe, rather than to push vulnerable people to extremes”. She offers a similar stance on vaccinations: “It’s your body… I’m not going to tell you whether or not to vaccinate you or your kid.” Flat-earthers, however, will likely have to look elsewhere (being a geography student has given this girl notions), as will those who are vying for Irexit – at least until we know how it works out across the pond (Sabrina is sceptical).

A final point of contention is exam repeat fees. Sabrina, in contrast with the other candidates, has opted to leave the promise of removing them off her manifesto. “I can’t promise it,” she says, “and I only want things on my manifesto that I think are feasible. It’s happening in the background, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t put it at the top of my list, because I don’t want someone to hold me to it.” She also emphasises that there is a system in place for students who can’t afford the repeat fee, which not a lot of students know about. Students who cannot complete an exam for a genuine reason can also seek an uncapped deferral – again, an option which is frequently neglected.

To finish, we do some totally harmless word association.

“Exam Fees?” ​​*Insert eyeroll emoji*

“Big Yellow Thing?” ​I love it; it should be our mascot. It’s an asset we don’t make enough use of!

“Postgraduates?” ​Underrepresented

“Trump?” ​​Orange

“Library?” ​​Old-fashioned

“Smokey the Pigeon?” ​He needs a birdhouse. And a society dedicated to feeding him.

We couldn’t agree more.

Interview conducted by Gemma Kent.