Nashville, Tennessee is one of my favorite cities in the South. As the birthplace of country music, Tennessee's capital has a certain kind of feeling to it. A feeling where there almost always seems to be a main event. The city's a stage and all the performers come alive to give the city its unique character.
The first August weekend brought in a new talent. The CASE ASAP convention, a conference that focuses on the Student-Alumni Associations across the country, premiered in Music City USA for its annual performance. Starring the SAA's from the University of Tennessee and Northern Kentucky University, this year's conference planned on being the biggest in the program's history, and, with all bias aside, this year lived up to a lot of the hype.
Of course, as a still relatively new SAA member at UT, it was great to meet other SAA's and learn some tips on how to run and partake in a successful association. However, from the staff's perspective, it was extremely encouraging to see everyone there who came in from all across the country meeting each other and learning new ideas themselves. At UT, we are extremely blessed to have such a solid SAA program. We are able to bring 35-40 people, bring so much to the table, heck, even co-host this entire convention. There were many programs that were making their debuts, so to speak. I was talking to some reps from Georgia State and they have grown to about 600 members (or some ridiculous) in an extremely small amount of time. The newbies from Atlanta also won the Spirit award this year. It'll be great to see how they grow in the future.
My favorite moment, though, overall was inside my own group. Getting to know the SAA's from my own school better was by far the best part of the weekend for me. Having been in SAA for a few months, I somewhat knew people in the group, but this weekend allowed me to get to know everyone a LOT better. There is still some novelties that will wear off with time, but I definitely consider SAA more of a family now than I did at the beginning of my SAA time. I can't wait for more SAA memories.
And hopefully, CASE ASAP will make an encore appearance in Nashville in the near future.
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