UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

“In the 2022-2023 year, the UF Chapter of SASE innovated and optimized every aspect of our organization, growing from approximately 90 to over 350 active members in the process. This culminated in our recognition as being one of four finalists for the University of Florida Student Organization of the Year 2022-2023. In this past year, we’ve established a semesterly Career Fair Prep week consisting of three events: We started a SASE Sports Program that has grown to consist of 48 intramural teams, weekly casual sports events, and multiple E-Sports tournaments. We’ve created an interdisciplinary design team, ‘SASE Engineering Team (SET),’ that allows members to develop their technical skills. We’ve introduced a new SASE Interns Program structure that provided leadership opportunities for 120 Interns. Finally, we re-imagined our online presence, redesigned our website and Instagram, and implemented social media initiatives such as reels and blogs that increased the number of visitors to our website in the past year to over 2,000 and our Instagram following from 800 to 1,517. In the 2022-2023 year, 109 UF SASE members received offers for research, full-time, or internship positions. 

Our SASE chapter has been successful because our board members are extremely passionate in creating a safe, loving, and welcoming community where all resources and members are easily accessible, setting our members up for success in all aspects of their college experience. We provide opportunities that cater to people of all interests and majors, letting our members and their specific needs dictate our direction, rather than the executive board deciding. Many of the new initiatives we described started off as suggestions from our members, which we worked on to make realities. Our advice to growing chapters is to listen to your members. Growth comes from connections made on a personal level—not a marketing campaign."