The Hispanic-Latine Student Assembly, an annual welcoming event, will go on this year with nearly half the budget it once had, joining other UF welcome assemblies that lost their Signature Event designations.
For the past three years, cultural welcoming groups including HLSA, the Pride Welcome Assembly, the Asian American Student Assembly and the Black Student Assembly were guaranteed funding, staff advising and promotional support under Signature Event status. That security ended when UF declined to renew the designation, forcing the groups to seek new funding sources and handle more of the administrative workload themselves.
Hector Isiah Collazo, a 22-year-old UF senior pursuing a dual degree in microbiology and cell science and anthropology, said the budget for HLSA was reduced by nearly half, though The Alligator could not confirm that number.
A university spokesperson could not comment in time for publication.
The HLSA event, hosted by the Hispanic-Latine Student Association, has opened the Fall semester for over 27 years, welcoming students to campus with food and live performances. Last year, the event drew a crowd of about 700, Collazo said.
Collazo, HLSA’s executive director, said the group is still expecting 700 to 750 attendees this year when it welcomes students to the Reitz Student Union Aug. 27. But still, the shift has felt unsettling, he said.
“We all thought that it was no longer going to be around,” he said. “[It’s] disheartening and also kind of scary.”
The assembly’s theme this year is “Stronger Together,” the same phrase the Hispanic-Latine Student Association used in a March 12 Instagram post announcing that UF would not renew HLSA’s Signature Event status.
The driving force
The change comes after UF eliminated the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, cut diversity, equity and inclusion positions and ended DEI-related vendor contracts in 2023. The moves aligned with a Florida law prohibiting public universities from using state or federal funds on DEI initiatives.
The Graduate Student Council was the sole organization able to renew its Signature Event status.
The Pride Student Union, or PSU, chose direct Student Government funding to make up the lost funding, receiving $13,000 under an event budget. Meanwhile, HLSA, as well as the Asian American and Black student assemblies, turned to Roots — an SG agency focused on transition and welcome programs.
With Roots, the organizations receive help when it comes to event planning, funding and mentorship. But even with alternative funding, student leaders said the process is far more complicated than before.
Adjusting to differences
“We’ve kind of been stretched to our limit as we’ve been preparing for our welcome assembly,” said Diego Herrada, a 19-year-old UF psychology junior and PSU’s internal vice president.
The lack of flexibility is one of the hardest changes, agreed Asif Islam, a 22-year-old UF graduate who worked with PSU last year.
“The benefit of Signature Events is you have basically a loose sum of money that you can choose to allocate as flexible as you want,” Islam said. “Student org money is allocated into fixed funds.”
Islam added that SG funding is not guaranteed since it works on a first-come, first-served basis, enabling organizations to receive lower budgets or be denied funding outright.
The administrative work that used to be handled by staff now falls on students, added Jonathan Stephens, a 22-year-old UF graduate who was last year’s PSU president.
“Obviously we want to be back on Signature Events, but that’s going to take a lot of state action to make that happen,” Stephens said. “The hope is that the university continues to support all student communities equally.”
Student leaders said Roots has helped but cannot fully replace Signature Event support.
“We have to get our designs approved by SG,” said Trunk Nguyen, a 19-year-old UF marketing sophomore who is the Asian American Student Assembly’s multimedia head. “There's a few more obstacles we have to go through to get things funded.”
Nguyen added that his assembly had to simplify programming this year despite maintaining consistency in planning.
Other budgeting losses
For some organizations, the loss of Signature Event status has spilled over into other programming.
“We have four events that we host every year that we didn’t get our funding for this year,” said current PSU president Steph Deleon, a 21-year-old UF accounting senior. “I’m not sure how we’re going to host events when we barely have enough money to feed people during our general body meetings.”
The group, which is the largest LGBTQ+ organization at UF, still expects 425 to 450 attendees at its welcome assembly.
Members of the Women’s Student Association and the Black Student Union, which also lost their Signature Event status, did not respond to requests for comment.
Contact Victoria at vriccobono@alligator.org. Follow her on X @vickyriccobono.
