Vice President of Academia

Hello everyone, I am Zechariah Laari, The Vice President of Academia 2021-2023.  The VPA role has been a multidimensional journey with a lot of experiences ranging from academia, internationalization, and student diversity.

It has been an awesome moment and a thrilling experience to serve the interests of the student community. This review in the office has given me a broad range of Skills sets. Ranging from self-development, Transboundary competence and many more.   As the Vice President of Academia, I am responsible for Internationalisation, student Academic experience and student diversity.   

On the academic front, I managed to achieve the following:

1.) Reviewed the school education and social work placement guidance Regulations to promote equality and diversity.  which was a chronic problem facing the Bame student in this school. With several misunderstandings as to the then-current structure being biased towards minorities. With some high requirements such as owning a car, which on a simple count would disadvantage most international students.   

In a similar development, I convinced the school to come up with a community definition of what a statutory placement was owing to feedback from several students.

2.) Promoting student experience and Voice in MSC Phycological Therapy in primary care MSc Psychology in primary care. which is a multi-institutional course. This Module MSc Psychological Therapy in primary care is a unique multi-institutional programme only facilitated by the NHS, the University of Dundee medical school and the University of Stirling medical school within the UK.    

A few weeks into the office, I was approached by a student with concerns about academic quality gaps, including content structure, delivery mode, information exchange through personal and private emails, grade delivery, outdated course content and materials, and how the module is beginning to lose its shape over time. Following this feedback, the student and I had to adopt an anonymous   approach by coming up with enough evidence which cemented the fact that this was the reality.      

After a back-to-back engagement with the medical school (Dundee/Stirling), I have received a joints statement from Dundee and Stirling programme directors, confirming that the evidence we provided was valid and hence they have incorporated all our valid Suggestions, best practices, and input, with the remaining awaiting PPR.   

# The University of Dundee certificate branding   

I facilitated conversations with the dentistry school president Gigi Gan Jia and Vice Principal of Education (professor Blair Grubb), the Director of external relations (Rebecca Trengove and the Examination and Graduations manager of the university (Kieran Clifford). on feedback and complaints as to how our certificate was losing touch in terms of a quality outlook. which the university has finally agreed to change. Note this is an ongoing discussion.  

# Reviewed Singapore student English proficiency requirements to promote flexibility through their admissions process.   

# Advice and assistance for Postgraduate research students.   

# Assisted a PHD /PGR to overcome challenges in Thesis upgrade (review stage).  

# Assisted PGR students to change their studentship from full-time to part-time. To provide them with more flexibility for completion.  

# Advocated with Dimitri (Dusa President 2021-2022) to increase the Opening hours of the PHD learning space Scrimgeour building to 10 pm.  

# Offering several academic and administrative advice to the school President in several forms of their educational landscape.   

# Organised School President workshop to discuss Nss Survey, academic dishonesty and integrity and school President year project   

# Acted as a resource person for a session on how to write a research paper organised by the VPC (Laura Van Overbeek Crusells )  

# With the help of Anna Broggi, we hosted the SLTA Awards to celebrate student and teaching professionalism in our university community.

 The year 2022/2023  

1.) Assessment workshop with the university to make our assessment to be focused and authentic in line with mastery, proficiency, and competency-based learning, where the student’s personal agency thinking is based on personalized experiences.  

2.) Facilitated Conversations affecting student experiences i.e. module choices with the New combined school, known as the school of humanities social science and law.  

3.) MS365 Champions  

4.) Aimed at promoting digital fluency in our university community.  

5.) Academicskillweek
 

Internationalisation   

Internationalisation is one of the major foci of the VPA, hence with determination, I was able to achieve the following; Identifying challenges and pitfalls in Chinese student WeChat that had the potential to affect the student communication value chain, I negotiated with the university to reimburse super-priority visa applicants from Southeast Asia (unfortunately, the university couldn’t reimburse this fund due to cost). I also Played a leading role in the Chinese New Year celebration and Sri Lankan new year celebration planning team. With the help of my fellow executive, I was able to organise an international student forum to discuss relevant issues surrounding the international student experience.  

# Visa Queries for international students 

Diversity   

# Sat on the Principal’s panel discussion on race and equality   

# Organised an African inclusivity event dubbed African cement day (Sold out) with the aim of developing this into a large-scale event for the African and black section of the university.   

# Led the organisation of the show racism the red card football march at riverside 3G 

# Externalised the Yammer platform to include the entire BAME community on campus  

  For further details reach out to me at Laarizachariah68@gmail.com