In the spring before her first year at the College, Sasha Tucker ’25 browsed @williamscollege_2025, and she noticed something: an above-average number of students named Sasha in the incoming freshman class. “I was talking to a couple of my friends from home and I was like, wouldn’t it be so funny if we all got together and formed some kind of club,” Tucker recalled.

It may have started as a joke, but there now actually exists the Sasha Student Union (SSU).

The SSU, an unofficial club at the College, has seven members: Sasha Tucker, Sasha Horvath ’25, Sasha Rieser ’25, Sasha Driver ’25, Sasha Landau ’25, Sasha Snyder ’25, and Sasha Cayward ’22. During the first few weeks of this academic year, each Sasha connected in one way or another. Rieser, Horvath, and Landau, for example, are in the same political science class. Tucker and Snyder are in the same entry, Mills-Dennett 4, where Driver also tends to spend time. Landau and Cayward met on a sunrise hike. Snyder was the one to create an iMessage group chat, and eventually the College’s seven Sashas were all added. 

Cayward, the only senior of the SSU and the self-proclaimed “mom of the group,” suggested their first meet-up. “I’ve always had younger friends, and I’ve always had older friends,” she said. “Even where I live, I’ve always been the mom… That’s always been my vibe, so I guess having [younger Sashas] has been so fun and keeps me young.” 

Landau remembered initially telling Cayward about a new club of only Sashas at the College. “I was like, ‘It’s all first years,’ and [Cayward was] like, ‘Perfect,’” Landau said.

As the only member of the SSU not living in first-year housing, Cayward hosted the SSU’s first meeting at Perry House. The Sashas were excited to unite in person for the first time, but they didn’t expect the group members to connect as well as they did. “Going into the first meeting, I didn’t really think it would be a community,” Landau said. “I was like, it’s going to be funny; we’re just going to meet each other once and then laugh about it. Maybe one of the Sashas I’ll do something again with.” But that wasn’t the case.

“We all commented within the first half hour [of the Perry meet-up that] … we’re really lucky that we’re all nice people that are clicking really well,” Tucker said. 

Cayward felt similarly. “It was those things where you instantly kind of connect over that common identity, even if it’s just a name,” she said.

Despite many Sashas feeling a sense of instant connection, their first meeting was also a bit bizarre, Snyder said. None of them had ever been in a room with that many Sashas. (Out of Horvath’s high school class of 1000 students, she was the only Sasha.) But the group leaned into the comedy of it all. The group jokingly rebuked President Maud S. Mandel’s statement during an address to first-years over First Days that Charlotte was the most common name among female first-years. There are, in fact, six Sashas and only four Charlottes in the Class of 2025.

Perry House, the site of their first gathering, is also home to many members of the men’s hockey team, who joined in on the humor. “[Team members] came in and thought it was the funniest thing, and they actually thought it was a joke,” Cayward said. “They’d be like, ‘Sasha!’ and we would all turn around. They’d just laugh uncontrollably because they thought it was the funniest thing.”

Many members of the group noted how lovely it has been to have found a small community within the larger school. When Horvath went home to New York City for the last weekend of September, she even made a Trader Joe’s run for other members of the group. When any Sasha is in need, another Sasha is just a text away, she said.

Despite the confusion expected from having the same name, Snyder said the number of first-years named Sasha actually makes each individual more distinct.  “It was actually kind of nice during First Days — I mean it was a little confusing — but people would remember our names because they were like, ‘Oh my God, there are so many of you,’ so then they identified us as ‘one of the Sashas,’” Snyder said.

And it helps that the SSU has become a somewhat famous group around campus. “I’ve been asked if I’m part of the SSU before,” Rieser said, noting how fast word has traveled about the club. Even when the Record sat down with all seven Sashas over dinner at Whitmans’, multiple students approached the table, expressing awe at seeing the entire group in the same place at the same time.

The Sashas have made membership in the SSU Instagram official, adding “Williams SSU” to their Instagram bios. “Friends from home were like, ‘What does that mean?’” Rieser said. “I’m like, ‘It’s a college of 2,000 people. All of the Sashas found each other. We’re the Sasha Student Union. It’s really cute.’”