The Spring Gala is a professional networking conference hosted by the University of South Carolina's student organizations to promote STEM and celebrate their contributions to the College of Engineering and Computing while providing students, alumni, faculty, and industry leaders with the opportunity for professional development.

In the 2021 fall semester, Brian McCaster, the Inclusive Programs Coordinator for the College of Engineering and Computing Student Services, hosted a dinner among the CEC student organizations, one of the first in-person professional events after the pandemic.

This dinner brought upon an idea by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), where they envisioned hosting a professional networking event exclusively for the College of Engineering and Computing, inviting students, faculty, and professionals from various companies.

Considering that SHPE is a CEC organization on campus, our vision was to promote representation of not only Hispanics in STEM, but other organizations as well. Therefore, SHPE reached out to other CEC organizations on campus including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Alpha Omega Epsilon Sorority (AOE), and Women in Computing (WIC), to help bring the Inaugural 2022 Diversity Gala to life as well as spread our mission to promote diversity in STEM.

The second Diversity Gala, in the spring of 2023, has expanded their contributions from other organizations on campus, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Pi Tau Sigma honor society (PTS) to further spread our mission in unity in STEM. Now, in 2025, the Diversity Gala includes 10 clubs from the CEC overarching almost all of our diverse clubs!