GLIAC SAAC

24-25 GLIAC SAAC resize
2024-25 GLIAC SAAC Cohort from top-down & left to right: Myles Rhodes; Zoe Spoelman; Joseph Swanson; Ella Uganski; Roy Bowman; Andrew Remer; Kaitlyn Ray; Abbi Steiner; Patrick Andrews; Angela Louis; McKenzie Johnson; Evie Dice; Lindsay Cole; Sarah Veale; Ruby Joseph; Ethan Rose; Kieran Cassidy
2024-25 Community Championship Progress

The 2025-26 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) retreat was held on July 25 and 26 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This year’s retreat featured an outstanding lineup of speakers, including Jake Dougherty from Opendorse, Quadri Owoiya from Deloitte, Joe Tate, Michigan State Representative, Nikki Trammell from Wayne State, Audrey McCabe from Podium X, and Kenton Mack from Athletes Igniting Action. These sessions offered valuable insight and professional development opportunities, helping student-athletes explore leadership, branding, and life beyond sports.

In addition to engaging presentations, the committee collaborated on setting goals for the upcoming year and recorded Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to promote key conference initiatives. The retreat set a strong and inspiring tone for the academic year ahead.

GLIAC member institutions will also continue their pursuit of the Community Championship—an initiative launched in 2023 that has quickly become a cornerstone of the league’s commitment to service and engagement. This friendly competition challenges student-athletes across all member schools to take part in impactful community service projects, fostering leadership, teamwork, and connection beyond the playing field. With the second year underway, schools are more driven than ever to make a difference and champion the true spirit of collegiate athletics.

Division II Campus SAAC Guide
2024-25 Cohort

A student-athlete advisory committee is made up of studentathletes assembled to provide insight on the student-athlete experience. The SAAC offers input on the rules, regulations and policies that affect student-athletes in NCAA member conferences and on NCAA member school campuses. There are national SAACs for each division representing student-athletes on a national level across the Association. NCAA legislation mandates that all member schools have SAACs on their respective campuses. Further, NCAA legislation requires that all member conferences have SAACs.

The purpose of a campus SAAC may vary across conferences and schools. However, the following six points reflect the primary purposes of a campus SAAC:

  • Generate a student-athlete voice within the institution or conference
  • Solicit a student-athlete response to proposed Division II legislation
  • Organize community engagement efforts
  • Create a vehicle for student-athlete representation on campus or conference committees
  • Act as a liaison between student-athletes, faculty, administrators and staff

Contact your current SAAC representatives or school liaison for more info!

- Each campus SAAC in the GLIAC will have one meeting dedicated to identifying and sharing the campus resources available to student-athletes pertaining to Mental Health. In addition, GLIAC SAAC will draft a communication to campus administrators highlighting the elevated place mental health holds in student-athlete priorities.

- During the 2024-25 academic year; GLIAC schools will work with their regional peers on two intercampus collaborative projects. In the Fall, all groups will work on a community service project with their regional peers. In the Spring, each group will come up with their own preferred project to work on with their regional peers. The regions will be set up as follows: MI Upper Peninsula – Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, and Northern Michigan; MI Lower Peninsula – Davenport, Ferris State, Grand Valley State, Saginaw Valley State, and Wayne State; Chicago-Area – Parkside, Purdue Northwest, and Roosevelt.

- GLIAC SAAC will contribute to marketing the GLIAC as the Conference of Champions, and advertising its supremacy in DII. GLIAC SAAC will create PSAs that will be available for campuses to share on FloSports broadcasts and will initiate the GLIAC esSAys for 2024-25 (a Players’ Tribune-type storytelling opportunity for GLIAC student-athletes).