VASFAA Involvement – What’s In It for Me??

1. Hone your skills as a financial aid professional. Whether you work in aid office, for a lender or guarantor, for a secondary school, for a college access provider, or some other aid-affiliated organization, you know that the aid profession and all aspects thereof are constantly changing. It is difficult to stay on top of all the changes and participation in VASFAA training opportunities help you manage that by providing you the chance to learn new skills, sharpen existing ones, and share skills you have with others. One of the best ways to learn is to teach.
   
   
   
2. Be an advocate for student financial aid. As more and more cuts are made to aid programs and additional restrictions placed on their administration, there can never be too many voices speaking out on behalf of the students and their families and those of us in the trenches on a day-to-day basis making it all work. VASFAA works to help members feel comfortable expressing those voices, and through its advocacy efforts with state and federal legislators, tries to carry those voices to the decision makers.
   
   
3. Develop and fine-tune skills as a leader. VASFAA provides opportunities through various training venues and through leadership involvement in the association for its members to develop new leadership skills and strengthen existing ones. These leadership skills help you not only in your work with the association but in your professional and personal lives as well. In VASFAA, for example, you can start by serving on one or more committees, move on to chairing or co-chairing a committee, run for elected office and eventually you might even serve as President of the association. The same leadership skills you use in VASFAA are those that would serve you well in your offices and vice versa.
   
   
4. Expand your network of colleagues. Networking within the association provides you with a wonderful support network for both personal and professional aspects of your career. The diversity of backgrounds, experience, and knowledge shared among the members of the association provide a resource that just cannot be beat. You can easily find a group of colleagues that have similar institution types, similar office organizations, or similar aid processing issues and concerns. These are peers that you can bounce ideas off of, share questions with, and even just use for the occasional reality check.
   
   
5. Increase exposure for your institution and for yourself at your institution. Involvement in VASFAA is a great way to show your institution that you are actively involved in aid advocacy, concerned about getting the latest and greatest information about the aid programs and regulations, and it’s a great way to put your institution’s name out there in the community as one that is actively involved in supporting student financial aid.
   
   
6. Have fun!!! This one was left as the last on this list for a reason. We must always remember that we do what we do because we care. We should celebrate the effort that we all put forth and truly enjoy the successes we bring to the process. We should have fun with what we do. Fun and professionalism are NOT mutually exclusive. In fact, one could argue that if we are truly having fun with what we do, then we will likely do it even better.