As we enter a new academic year and a fresh Students’ Union team enters office, one familiar face remains, SU Academic Affairs Officer James Donoghue.
With a year of experience already under his belt, Donoghue wants to branch into working on student feedback from last year with staff, as he has a bigger understanding of how to go about things on a committee level.
“We will have worked a good bit on getting student feedback last year and it’s a really good opportunity for me this year to use that at committee level, university wide to ensure that students are getting the experience they want,” Donoghue said.
“I actually have to take that information, bring it to the university and say yeah, you’ve done very well in this aspect but maybe student feedback on assignments isn’t where it should be.”
“I would still bring the same aspects to the role that I would have brought last year that the students come first ,” Donoghue told The College View.
Amidst the incorporation of the Glasnevin, St. Patrick’s College and All Hallows’ campuses, Donoghue noted that he had to become more “on the ball” as a results of two different structures coming together to deliver exam results.
“There was certain aspects of exam results that hadn’t been there before and I kind of had to make sure I was double checking everything and not just going on what I learned last year,” he said.
The new multi-campus DCU will not act as an issue for the Academics Affairs Officer, according to Donoghue. While “some of the other roles will be about your presence on other campuses”, he told The College View that his “is about representation and support”.
“In terms of representation, any work I’m doing to get students opinions will be across every campus and I’ll bring that to the body that is correct,” he said.
DCUSU has five full time Sabbatical roles, as opposed to three in previous years. Donoghue noted that there’s more communication needed but the dynamics of that are not bad.
“It’s nice being that experienced staff member but there’s four new sabbatical officers but we also have three or four new full time staff up here.”
“It’s been refreshing, it’s been nice and I think in terms of SU you do need energy, it’s the one thing you absolutely need,” he said.
Hayley Halpin
Image credit: Laura Horan
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