I was part of club where it went from two people to 40+ people.
Recruiting players should always be the main focus. Involvement fairs, flyers, playing in a public location that has a lot of foot traffic.
After people show up depending on their skill level you should do the following:
If they are new/beginner, play a "teaching game" it's a concept from Go that you should play a game that teaches the player on what to do next rather than crushing them. I cannot stress this enough. You should be teaching them rather than crushing them. Officers of the club should voluntarily give up playing their own games to teach. It's 3x easier to retain a member than to get a new one.
If they are already decent at chess have them play against others normally.
Generally people that show up to workshops are the people that really like chess and want to improve. Usually we would have a 2000+ player that shows up and covers a specific topic. Pawn structures/attacking motifs/typical endgame patterns etc. Then they would break us up into group and we would be given a series of puzzles. Afterwards we just relax and kibitz. If you can't consistently get a top player to cover the workshops just have a newbie day. Where you have an someone practice general improvement strategies.
Contact the university for funding to chess tournaments. Bureaucracy is a bitch but if you follow the paperwork it works. Your end goal should be hosting a rated tournament of your own at the club.
Note:Too be honest you should probably get someone at least 1800 + to teach. 1500 is usually where you know enough tactical patterns and are just starting to study strategy. There are usually 2000's lurking around at any university. A lot of times they are graduate students should it will require some detective work to find them.
Extra Note: Practicing markdown on reddit is great procrastination haha