Columbia Alumni Association
The Columbia Alumni Association (CAA) is an umbrella association for all university alumni that was formed in 2005-2006. You automatically become a member of the CAA upon graduation. It is not to be confused with the Columbia College Alumni Association or other individual school alumni associations.
The CAA was launched as a successor to the Alumni Federation. Its goal is to create a unified alumni association to forge a "sustainable, ongoing program of alumni relations," according to Eric Furda, VP of Alumni Relations. Whereas individual schools have had alumni associations of their own, no univeristy-wide organization dedicated planning events to bring together students from all schools had existed.
Since its launch, CAA has launched a University Alumni Newsletter, a University-wide Alumni Directory, and embarked on a blitz of events. In its first year the CAA hosted 150 events around the world that were attended by 11,000 alumni and guests. In summer 2007, it hosted a particularly glittering and star-studded alumni event in Paris.
Also in the summer of 2007, the CAA took over the Columbia Connections website.
