Fellow Alumni,
As the president of the Columbia College Alumni Association, I look forward to working with the many enthusiastic and bright College alumni who volunteer their time and offer their expertise to the College. The CCAA Board of Directors is committed to building a strong community of former students that links alumni with our remarkable student body. I already have met many alumni who have shared with the CCAA terrific ideas and helpful solutions to maintain and build upon the excellence of the College and of the Columbia community. From serving on a Reunion Committee to joining the Alumni Representative Committee (ARC), there are many ways to get involved and make your voice heard. If you’re already involved, I offer my thanks and my hope that you’ll continue to be so.
While our College experiences vary, we have a deep, unifying appreciation for alma mater among our network of 47,700-plus alumni. For some of us, it was the educational experience. For others, it was, and is, the valuable social and networking interactions. Having attended what Dean James J. Valentini calls “the greatest college in the greatest university on the greatest city in the world” bonds us and offers us unique opportunities to connect, to grow and to be enriched by one another. Columbia College is an enormous part of our identity, and the CCAA wants to impress on alumni and students that one’s connection to the College does not and should not end at Class Day and Commencement.
The CCAA offers many opportunities for involvement with the College, with fellow alumni and with students, both directly and indirectly. My first involvement after graduation was as a member of ARC, interviewing high school seniors who had applied to Columbia. Today, with applications reaching more than 30,000 a year, ARC needs you more than ever. A fun way to reconnect with classmates is by joining your Reunion Committee and assisting with planning, outreach and/or development. Other options are mentoring students, joining your regional Columbia alumni club or being a Columbia College Fund Class Agent.
We — whether CCAA board and committee members, alumni of all generations or Columbia College staff — are embarking on a journey that we hope will create programs that will serve the College community for many years to come. This includes creating richer programming and networking around the world. We also are thinking about ways to offer better tools that will make your experience more enjoyable. From students to alumni who graduated 50 years ago or more, our community is coming together and I invite you to be a part of the movement.
CCAA: Be engaged and be inspired.
Roar!
Doug Wolf CC’88
President, Columbia College Alumni Association
