The International Affairs Association

I love the IAA.

What a few weeks it has been for our amazing club.  Having attended three more Intercol trips and having a healthy mix of newcomers and old-timers winning awards, the IAA has also been active on campus.  From the wonderfully educational and relaxing Senior Wine tour to the Halloween Hayride special event we had last week, there has been a lot going on for our club.  And I’ve loved every minute of it.

I wanted to take this time to particularly highlight the Conference on International Affairs (CIA) that took place a short while ago.  This was a monumental effort taken on by Payal, JoAnna, Brittany and the rest of the Special Events team.  The question that the IAA always philosophically struggles with every year is, “How do we have an impact?”  That Saturday morning, when we managed to entice a big group of local High School students to turn out to listen to lectures and presentations on international affairs, we had our straight, direct answer.  We have an impact by doing what we are good at.  We have a strong understanding of international affairs.  We have significant conference-planning experience when we put on 2 of the most prominent Model UN conferences in the world.  The CIA was the result of the IAA’s quest to have a sizable community service impact that both related to the mission of the club and actually added value for those that we were serving.

The CIA will grow into another one of our prominent conferences- I have no doubt about this.  With the amazing start we’ve had in our first year, I can’t see anything but growth for that conference.  The potential for growth is so high, and we really have all the efforts of the Special Events team to thank for putting this together.  It will definitely be one of the highlights of the year.

Now, we’ve got a big one coming up.  UPMUNC is next week!  GET PUMPED!  It’s going to be an amazingly exciting weekend!  More on that in a bit…

Love,

Jay Raghavan

IAA President