The Central Societies Committee (CSC) is the body responsible for student societies in Trinity College.

4th Week

4th Week

Date: Monday 19 October

Brought to you by the Central Societies Committee and of course.... the Societies of Trinity College Dublin.

Fourth Week and the Fourth Week Initiative was launched by the Central Societies Committee (CSC) at Commons on Monday 19^th October in the Old Dining Hall. The Fourth Week Initiative is a set of programmes and proposals which the CSC has implemented to highlight the central position which student-led activity plays within the lives of students during their time in College.  The CSC’s initiative is based on the belief that monikers like the “Trinity Experience” and the “College Community” have become empty though overuse and the unchallenged assumption that experience and community can be imposed.  The CSC and its constituent Societies, though the Fourth Week Initiative, aim to show the breadth and depth of student commitment to societal activity and to emphasise that the “Trinity Experience” and the “College Community” are grounded in the reality of individuals working together because each wishes to, not because each is told to. 

The Central Societies Committee is passionate in its belief that student-led societal activity (and, for that matter, the work of DUCAC and the sports clubs) has, as a very welcome by-product, the capacity to foster a sense of Collegiality and furthers plays a vital role in Student Retention within the University. 

Elements of the Fourth Week Initiative include: 

Postgraduate Society and Club Information Day:

Many postgraduates have completed their primary degrees in Universities which have little by way of students societies and therefore do not realise the scale and breadth of activity in Trinity.  The CSC is very pleased to be able to announce the successful piloting, in conjunction with the GSU and DUCAC, of the first Postgraduate Society and Club Information Day, which took place in the first week of teaching term.  On the basis of this success, the scheme is to be continued and expanded. 

The Hilary Term Freshers’ Fair which is part of the CSC’s longer-term proactive strategy to work with the new teaching term structure.  This will allow new Postgraduate and International Students the opportunity to play catch-up in the second term. 

“Mind Mine” - an informal gathering of society officers which aims to see how the CSC centrally can better help individual societies and officers and also to see how the ideas of  individual societies and officers can help the CSC in its work for them.

A major College-wide survey to gather information from College members to better serve the evolving need of societies and their members.  The survey will also examine the issues of Collegiality and Retention.  The survey is being carried out in conjunction with final-year students in MSISS.