For a little over a year now, one Binghamton University organization has been working tirelessly to create a name for itself within the student community.

Founded in October 2021, the Thai Student Organization (TSO) has joined the ranks of other cultural organizations at BU, and has become a fun, safe learning space for any student interested in Thai/Thai-American culture. Although the TSO is still relatively new, its Executive Board has made rapid progress in expanding the group and becoming an official, SA-funded organization within a remarkably short time frame.

TSO President Alita Lin, a junior majoring in biology, said the idea to create the TSO first occurred to her when she became interested in joining a Thai club on campus, only to realize that none existed. Thus, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I knew of someone that was also interested in creating a Thai club, but I had little connections to him,” Lin wrote in an email. “Eventually, I decided to reach out to him after finding out he was a close mutual friend.”

From there, Lin started talking to friends who also had an interest in the club, and things were quickly set into motion. The founding members began to build an E-Board, coming up with positions and holding elections.

The newly formed E-Board shared the same ambitions for creating a safe haven for students interested in Thai/Thai-American culture that, at that point, didn’t formally exist in BU.

“We aim to educate our community about the importance of the culture and any Thai-related issues,” Lin said. “Overall, we want to represent a very small population of Thai students at [BU] and the surrounding Broome County areas.”

However, the past year has been full of challenges and hard work for Lin and her peers. As is the case for any students hoping to form a club, one of the biggest obstacles the TSO E-Board members had to overcome was getting chartered.

“We had no prior knowledge of how clubs got chartered so it first took a lot of effort in contacting the Student Association to get all the steps,” Lin said. “We had to get signatures, create events, make a constitution and meet with multiple representatives of the [SA].”

However, the members’ hard work was rewarded when, in March 2022, the TSO officially became provisionally chartered — which Lin explained means they have all the perks of being an officially chartered organization excluding funding — and are on track to be officially chartered by the same time next year.

“I would say TSO got chartered much faster than most clubs,” Lin said. “However, all of our E-Board members worked diligently to get chartered within a semester.”

In addition to their work in getting chartered, the TSO’s E-Board has also been working to expand the club’s outreach and grow its membership, a process Lin describes as “both challenging and rewarding.”

“As a new club with many members who have no prior experience with being on an [E-Board], we’ve had many obstacles along the way,” Lin said. “At times, it takes us longer to plan events, do our meetings, book rooms, etc. However, as time went on we slowly learned how to do things efficiently so there’s not as much of a struggle.”

Now, the club is regularly putting on exciting events, from their chicken satay fundraiser to a Thai horror rom-com movie night, and are gaining traction within the student community.

After over a year of diligent work, Lin says she and her fellow E-Board have formed a close bond with each other, as well as with the general body.

“I can say that the majority of our [E-Board] have gotten so close, which makes our experiences more entertaining,” Lin said. “We notice all of our [general body] who come to our events and make an effort to talk to them so they feel comfortable and have a good time around TSO.”

The TSO has no plans to halt its impressive growth anytime soon and is already making plans to ensure the club’s continued success. Assisting with this is TSO Advisor Andrew Zhang, a first-year graduate student studying computer engineering.

“Our plans for the upcoming year [are] to continue to establish our presence on campus to endorse a space for people who are interested in Thai culture,” Zhang said. “In addition, we would like to expand our event planning capabilities such as banquets or nights.”

Amy Chen — the TSO’s publicity chair and a sophomore studying psychology, also described having long-term goals. She hopes to impart the skills and experience she’s developed in her position, which includes creating promotional graphics and posters, to future E-Board members.

“I want to show them through these graphics that you can be innovative and incorporate novel ideas into them,” Chen said.

As for this semester, one of the club’s biggest events is coming up in only a few weeks — the Loy Krathong: Festival of Floating Lights. Anna Chau, the social chair for the TSO and a junior majoring in business administration, expressed her excitement over the festival, which will be held on Nov. 19.

“It’s going to be one of our largest events for the semester and everyone has planned and worked very hard to make sure it becomes a success,” Chau said.

Zhang said the event will “showcase different aspects of Thai culture, from its cuisine to different traditional games and activities.”

With only a year under its belt, the TSO has already made incredible progress in growing its club and forming a tight-knit community, and it’s clear they have a bright future ahead at BU.