Student Academic Affairs Board turns 20
What started as an idea scribbled on a napkin by student leaders and their adviser is now cause for pride and celebration at Lewis & Clark. The Student Academic Affairs Board (SAAB) celebrated its 20th anniversary in February, and SAAB representatives, grantees, faculty, and alumni were on hand to applaud the board’s past accomplishments and help kick off plans for its future.
At the forefront of these plans is a five-year fundraising campaign designed to augment SAAB’s annual budget.
"Student fees currently fund SAAB grants," says Michael Ford, associate vice president for campus life. "But there is a need, over time, for an additional funding source. That’s what our new endowment drive is all about."
A student-run organization, SAAB administers a tutoring program and actively represents student interests in academic matters at Lewis & Clark. But the bulk of its budget—$40,000 this academic year—has been dedicated to funding its grant program.
SAAB functions like a minifoundation, with students submitting grant requests for peer review. Since its inception in 1982, SAAB has awarded more than 650 grants to undergraduates for research projects, visiting scholars, performances and artistic displays, and participation in academic conferences.
"This program is unique," says Ford, one of SAAB’s proud founders who was director of student activities at the organization’s inception. "We haven’t found another school with anything like it. We invented it."
The way Ford remembers it, the idea for SAAB grew out of a particularly frustrating student senate meeting in 1981. Over coffee the next morning, one of the student senators said, "This isn’t working."
"Then change it," Ford replied.
In those days, Lewis & Clark’s student government was structured much like other college student governments, with senators elected from residence halls, whose main charge was governing student activities.
Bob Jones ’82, who was student body president at the time, says that a group of student leaders put together a proposal to completely reorganize the student government into boards and councils, with SAAB as the crown jewel. Jones says foremost in the minds of planners was that "student government wasn’t close enough to academic life. SAAB was a way to focus student government on academic life rather than solely on activities."
Jones says that in the weeks that followed, the existing senate voted itself out of existence (senators were moved to different positions in the new administration), and students voted to create SAAB. One student representative from each academic department sits on the board, which meets once a week to discuss academic concerns and twice a year to review proposals and award grants.
Both Ford and Jones attribute SAAB’s creation and continued health to the dedication and vision of Lewis & Clark students. "We had a remarkable group of people in place," Jones says of the founders in 1981. "It was a very fortunate convergence."
—by Kathleen Holt More Campus News | 
