SASEPrints: A New Dawn
*Editor’s note: For those of you who don’t know me, I have been volunteering with the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers’ national blog, SASEPrints, since October of 2014. In July 2015, I replaced Ryan Yen (@RK_yen) as the blog lead and with a team of amazing writers and editors, we’ve been working to increase SASEPrints’ readership and influence as a resource for SASE current and potential members. Read on to find out what we’re doing in 2016.
SASEPrints has been around for over 2 years. In that time, we’ve posted 21 pages (on saseconnect.org/saseprints) of stories with topics ranging from professional development to congee. We’re proud of what we’ve done, but we realize that there are a few changes that we need to make in order to better serve our readers.
First, the website is not easy to navigate and find the specific topic you’re looking for whether it’s professional development related or you’re looking to see what chapters around the country have done for Spirit Week.
Second, only a small percentage of SASE members contribute to the national blog by sharing their stories.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, many SASE members don’t know of the existence of the blog nor that they are welcome to contribute.
We’re going to try to fix all of that.
We’re instituting three major changes starting this month. The first is an open call for guest bloggers. We want to hear what you’re doing in your everyday-SASE-member life. We want to hear about those tricks that saved your butt during finals. We want to hear about the awesome things you’re doing in research or internships. We want to hear about your experiences as an Asian in America. We want to hear about how you’re taking the 2015 National Conference theme (Leadership: Confidence, Courage, Commitment) and applying it to your life — or how you’ve been inspired by seeing someone else apply it. To find out more, see this post.
The second change is doubling our reach by also posting on Medium. We’ve created a Medium account (SASEPrints) and we’re excited to be able to sort the different posts into general topics (Asian Culture; SASE Professional Development; SASE explores STEM; and Leadership: Confidence, Courage, Commitment) for easier browsing. We’re also excited because utilizing Medium will allow guest bloggers to continue to build their own online brand on Medium. SASEPrints has a dual function: bring stories to SASE members and give SASE members a chance to improve writing/editing skills while adding to their personal brand. Using Medium will allow us to more effectively accomplish both functions of SASEPrints!
The third change is one I’ve already alluded to. SASEPrints is going to be trying to more effectively include all three pillars of our mission statement: culture, professional development, and STEM. With the addition of SASE general news and the National Conference theme, we have four general topics. These four will be on a scheduled rotation where the first Sunday will feature a culture related topic, the second a professional development topic, the third a STEM topic, and the fourth a SASE/National Conference theme topic.
We’re really excited about the changes we’ve made and we hope you will be excited too! Look forward to next Sunday’s culture post on both saseconnect.org/saseprints and on medium.com/@SASEprints!
Let us know what you think about the changes in the comments below and we look forward to hearing from YOU as a guest blogger soon!
