The Student Alumni Association of the Arkansas Alumni Association announced its 2,000th member, Thursday, June 25. Jessica Baker, freshman, pre-nursing major, joined the student organization during her visit at summer orientation.

"This marks an exciting milestone as rapid growth over the past year has quintupled the size of organization. But membership numbers alone are not the only thing that matters," Ryan Miller, assistant director of student and young alumni programs said.

In honor of this achievement the Bill and Jo Ella Toller Celebration Bell at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House will peal for 20 minutes and three seconds, 2 p.m., Thursday, July 9 in honor of the year the SAA was established in 2003.

To help set a solid foundation for connecting current students to the University, SAA has made additional efforts throughout the 2014-2015 school year. In fall 2014, a new tradition, the official BEAT shirt, T-shirts stating BEAT the football SEC opponent of the week, was established.

"It was created as a member benefit, resulting in students literally wearing the SAA logo all across campus," Miller said.

Continuing the on-campus SAA brand recognition effort, the organization hosted Homecoming to further educate students the goal of maintaining tradition, Miller said.

Finally, over the past month, a subtle rephrasing of SAA as "the Student Chapter of the Alumni Association" has been established to "instill the beginning of a lifelong connection to the University to the new incoming freshman class," Miller said.

This upward trajectory of the membership numbers has gained momentum due the expansion and empowerment of the Student Alumni Board. The board grew from six to 54 student members within a two-year time span. Miller said more students have become engaged in the effort to connect their fellow students to the Alumni Association. He also attributes this growth to the refinement of the organization's focus areas of traditions, alumni engagement and senior experience to clearly define the role of the organization plays on campus.

"Ultimately, our board is once again respected as one of the premier leadership organization on campus," said Alex Chaffin, 2015 Student Alumni Board president. "We are excited for the coming year and working together with other campus groups to connect students the University of Arkansas," he said. A complete list of Student Alumni Board members can be found at www.arkansasalumi.org/sab.

Additionally, the Alumni Association completed a two-year expansion of the Senior Awards program. Building on the tradition of honoring the top male and female students with the Senior Honor Citation, the Association recognized 71 Seniors of Significance, selected the top 20 as Razorback Classics and chose the 50th Senior Honor Citation recipients this spring. Full details can be found at www.arkansasalumni.org/studentawards.

"We look forward to continued growth in our student impact while creating opportunities for alumni to invest in our membership. We truly feel that offering connection to alumni not only benefits current students but allows for meaningful opportunities for Campaign Arkansas engagement for our alumni and friends," Miller said.

For more information or to become a member of the largest student organization on campus, the Student Alumni Association, please visit www.arkansasalumni.org/saa.