CHANGE AGENT #4 --  Then and Now: Reflections on the Past 

by Holly Rison, VASFAA Archivist

12 Year’s Ago….What was VASFAA Up To?

What was VASFAA doing 12 years ago?

The 1990 Fall VASFAA Conference was being held at the Wintergreen Resort from October 21^st through the 24^th.  Our VASFAA President, Marvin Hensley was concerned about frozen travel budgets and the impact that would have on the fall conference attendance. (Some things never change). The number of VASFAA members who were going to “pay their own way” encouraged him.

Our program chair was Helga Greenfield of Old Dominion University.  Our theme was “Cooperation, Communication and Celebration”. Our highlight speaker for the banquet was Lt. Drew Brown of the US Navy reserves. He was a motivational speaker.  The attendees seemed to enjoy him tremendously.  Some of the big topics of discussion at the conference were “Dealing with Difficult People”,  “Tender Loving Care: A Thing Called Professional Judgment”, “VASFAA Leadership Development” and “Responsive Listening Techniques”.

Cynthia Hunter, Chair of VASFAA’s Secondary Schools Relations Committee was busy putting together nine Statewide High School Workshops for Guidance Counselors.

In Muriel Murray’s (Executive Director of the State Education Assistance Authority) report to the VASFAA Newsletter, she stated that the SEAA was developing 13 informational sessions scheduled between September and December of 1990.

The VASFAA Journal was published in the fall of 1990.  Some of the articles included  “Instability in Students’ Family Income: The Implication for Multiple Year Needs Analysis” by Laura Greene of PHEAA, “Monitoring The Academic Progress of Financial Aid Recipients: A Special Responsibility” by David Stockam from the University of Kentucky and “School and Lender Concerns for Student Loan Administrator in Virginia” by Richard Stillwagon of Virginia Tech and Jackie Kessler of the SCT Corporation.

As you can see, we were just as busy then as we are now.