The Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA) Executive are your elected representatives for academic year 2022/23. They work together to ensure students have the best experience possible.
Zechariah Laari is the Vice-President (VP) of Academia, and was re-elected after a successful year in 21/22. He is responsible for ensuring the student voice is heard in all Learning and Teaching matters, as well as striving to improve the academic experience.
The OneDundee bloggers had a chat with Zechariah to help you get to know him better:
Q: Zechariah, why did you decide to run for this role?
A: It was a great pleasure working with the University in improving student Academic experience over the last year and this gave me the beaming confidence to re-run for this role. I also saw this as a great opportunity to broaden my horizon within the UK culture.
Q: What are your aims for the year?
A:
- Establish a Digital Café community-based learning, to promote digital fluency in MS 365 packages, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and LinkedIn.
- Promote student voice in teaching and learning by working closely with various academic leads to ensure that students are given the opportunity to champion their academic experience, including identifying and filling gaps created by unmet needs in teaching and learning.
- Promote equality and diversity within the student population.
Q: What can you help students with?
A: I can help students with mitigating circumstances, academic appeals, grade transparency, plagiarism, fitness to practice and feedback.
Q: What made you choose to study at Dundee?
A: The prevalence of diversity among our student population makes Dundee a beautiful place to study, coupled its Academic Excellence Framework, seen on Times Higher Education, UK.
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you can offer a new student?
A: Set realistic expectations while keeping your eyes on the ball through developing a growth mindset, and always remember to celebrate every little success on your academic journey. Every single step makes a difference. Devote time for extracurricular activities and develop long-lasting friendships and relationships.
Q: What’s your favourite memory during your time at Dundee?
A: Summer Parade Picnics at Magdeline Green Park was a banger.
Want to get in touch with Zechariah? You can contact him using the information below:
Phone: 01382 386 007
Email: vpa@dusa.co.uk