The Student University Activities Board, formerly known as the Student Union Advisory Board, started in April of 1967, offering the student body social activities to improve the social, moral, intellectual, cultural and political life outside of education. 

Initially, the organization held many events that would be catered to international days, most notably International Foods Day, which began as a traditional or similar event to the food truck festival event. 

Landerson Young, a junior economics student, serves as the President for the 2023 – 24 academic year. Before her presidency, she was an evening and weekend chair intern, ensuring the student body’s needs were met in activities each year.  

“When it comes to our board members, they spend a lot of time just thinking about what students want to see,” Young said. “We ask around. We even have a mailbox at the front [of the SUAB office] where students can come in and suggest different events they want to see for the next semester.”

Traditional events are handled delicately, becoming challenging because the board members want to keep traditional events and include new ideas to create more engagement. 

Event planning can run long. Spending summers to get events ready and then continuing the planning for the spring semester during the fall semester. Ideas are put together in September, and the ideas are pitched to the board starting in late October or early November.. 

“Once your idea is pitched, which includes literally all the details of what you want this event to look like, you can start the planning process,” Young said. “For example, one of our board members might have an event in January, and their planning process is at least three months.” 

In past years, each chair offered five events, totaling 30 events for each semester. This year, the organization has removed those requirements to cater to a larger student body audience. 

“As we continued throughout the year, our main focus was taking time to think about executing programs that will cater to the largest amount of students on campus,” Young said. 

Although SUAB wants to deliver to the student body, they recognize that they are still students.. Vice President Asha Taitt, a senior multimedia journalism student, has been on the board for three years, noticing the crucial time consumption. 

“I had to go through all of the parts of becoming the vice president. I started as an intern, which, you know, you’re kind of learning the ins and outs of program planning, “ Taitt said. “From that perspective, it was overwhelming just because you didn’t realize how much pressure there was actually to deliver. It can be intimidating at first, but once you get comfortable, which SUAB makes sure you are, it’s not as bad as many think. We’ve also been advised to minimize events, so we’re not overwhelming ourselves as students.”

Although the pressure of event planning can be tough,  the desire of wanting to deliver 

“I have my moments of procrastination, especially when you have like 30 other things going on,” Taitt said. “I think what really keeps me going is knowing that somebody is looking forward to this, and so you want to be able to deliver.”

Location is very considerable because SUAB would like to reach every part of campus, and location plays an essential part in student attendance. 

“We tend to have better turnouts in the common areas. For example, with the shoot-your-shot event [that happened in  October], it being behind the student center was a hot spot for us,” Taitt said. “With places that tend to be on the southside [of campus], it can be harder depending on the time of day. But we realized there are students to serve across the campus, period.” 

This new planning process involves making the events bigger, giving more time and dedication from the previous planning experiences in a short time. 

“We are trying to create events that are bigger so that the planning process is longer,” Young said. “In the past, we might’ve had to plan an event in a month or so, but since we are trying to create events and think harder about what these events are going to look like for our student body, it’s taking us longer to plan.” 

SUAB has taken the initiative to help other student organizations with “SUAB On Tour,” an initiative to help organizations get event materials, and program assistance to receive help from the chairs learning about event enhancements and signing up for “How to Fridays”.

SUAB is for the entire student body, and they receive some of their funding through the athletics fee. Students are encouraged to attend events to find new friends and participate in the college fun.  

To stay updated with SUAB and the upcoming events, follow their Instagram or check daily in 1891 Connect.