“Columbia is a community you want to keep in touch with.”
: New York
Jim “Woody” Woodward & Kristie Borgmann New York Metro chapter leaders
When Richard Matson (B.A. ’98) resigned his position last year as head of the New York chapter of the Columbia Alumni Association and Network (CAAN), he provided current chapter leaders Kristie Borgmann (’04) and Jim “Woody” Woodward (’03) with the opportunity to create their own vision for the 1,600-plus alumni living in the New York metro area. “I want to create a small community,” says Borgmann, 26, an art manager for Atlantic Records who also co-owns an indie hip-hop label called Rhyme City Records. “Columbia is a community you want to keep in touch with.” Borgmann’s and Woodward’s many efforts to bring alumni together in the cultural Mecca of New York include monthly get-togethers at 849, a Greenwich Village nightclub. The two have also organized daylong networking events for alums, such as a recent brunch followed by a New York Mets game. “CAAN is important for alums to be a part of,” says Woodward, 31, who owns an artist management company called Lateral Management. “We need it for people to grow and we need it to bring people together and make them feel a part of something.” But their networking efforts don’t stop with alums. Each year, CAAN New York participates in an annual Columbia-sponsored trip for current students from the music, fashion, and theater departments. The students spend their spring break in New York, and network with alums and industry insiders in a meetand-greet style gathering. “Hopefully they can land an internship or, if they’re lucky, a job,” says Woodward. And how did Columbia prepare Woodward and Borgmann for their careers? “You have to have an entrepreneurial mind if you want to move forward,” says Woodward, “and Columbia sets the tone for artist managers.” Borgmann, meanwhile, believes Columbia strikes a good balance between teaching academics and encouraging networking. They “prepared me by not only giving me information about the music industry, but by showing me that networking is the key with going into anything.” —Brent Steven White (B.A. ’08)
This
Reunion Rocks!
Reconnect‘09 Evolving Through the Decades
September 25-27, 2009 www.colum.edu/AlumniReunion