SPOTLIGHT FEATURES

VASFAA Board Retreat Highlights |Two Special Features Based on Planning and Goal Setting for Students | National Alert

Continuity Within VASFAA

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines continuity in three different ways, but the first definition is 1 a : uninterrupted connection, succession, or union b : uninterrupted duration or continuation especially without essential change.

One of the primary goals Tom Morehouse, VASFAA President, and I established when we entered into this year is to work with the VASFAA Board, committees, and membership to provide more continuity for the association. Tom and I want to establish as much of an “uninterrupted connection” between this year’s Board and next year’s Board as possible. It is important that we do not begin next year trying to “reinvent the wheel.”

There is a misconception among some people that in order to maintain continuity you must have the same people doing the same jobs year after year. Unfortunately, that’s a myth that has been perpetuated by the lack of volunteers in specific sectors of VASFAA, and by the very nature of how some of the VASFAA positions are structured.

There are no longer any one-year elected positions on the VASFAA Board. Therefore, by the very nature of being voted to the Board a person will serve at least a two year term. This provides some much needed stability among the Board.

From a non-board perspective, I have heard comments from people saying they see the same individuals year after year in the forefront of VASFAA activities. There are several reasons for this appearance. Probably the most prominent reason is these individuals are some of the first to volunteer year after year. They show a great deal of support for VASFAA and the association has been blessed to prosper as a result of their dedication. There are also many “behind the scene” volunteers for VASFAA who are not as much in the public eye due to the nature of their volunteerism. These individuals are not as much in the forefront as others, but VASFAA could not continue without their assistance.

One of the more challenging issues we face as an association is that of volunteerism among our post secondary school members. Other state associations also deal with the same challenge. Being a part of that sector myself, I know how hard it can be to find the time to get involved in an association; although, I am very fortunate to work for an institution that supports this type of involvement.

So, how do we as an association get more of our school members to volunteer? How do we as an association help achieve more continuity from year-to-year? Will achieving the goal of having more volunteerism from our school members help with our continuity efforts? Our contention is that VASFAA can have continuity…we can have “continuation especially without essential change.”

Here are a few examples of how your Board is working towards the accomplishment of maintaining continuity:

· This year’s Board is making decisions based on more than just the immediate needs of VASFAA and our constituents. That’s not to say that prior Boards did not look to the future as well. I am entering my fourth year on the Board and each Board I have served on has looked to the future as well as the present. However, this year’s Board has made a special effort to tie the decisions made today into where VASFAA wants to go for the future.
· The Board has voted to hold the annual conference at the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront resort for the next three years. This type of structure has worked well with other associations and will give VASFAA more time to plan dynamic conferences for the membership.
· The Board has established the Leadership Initiative Fund to assist in developing future school leaders within the association. The fund will be used to provide full scholarships for selected school individuals to attend the VASFAA Leadership Symposium beginning in 2005-06. The New Professional of the Year and Committee(s) of the Year Chair(s) recipients who meet the following criteria will receive this sponsorship:
1. Must be a paid post secondary educational institution VASFAA member in good standing
2. Must not have held a prior Executive Board position within VASFAA
3. Must be able to attend the entire symposium without any schedule conflicts
4. Must continue to meet these criteria from the time the award is made through the end of the Leadership Symposium in order to receive the sponsorship
Additionally, the Board may award additional “at large” sponsorships to this event each year.
· The Board is selecting more junior committee chairs this year than in recent years. The goal of this initiative is for the junior chairs to become the chair next year, thus providing a bridge between the years.
· The Board is asking the more experienced school individuals who hold committee positions to take the new members under their wings. This sort of mentorship is necessary to provide continuity, as it keeps the new members involved and helps educate them about VASFAA’s mission.
· The committee chairs are being asked to establish a set of standard goals that are consistent with the VASFAA Strategic Plan, which focuses on the future of our organization.

These are just a few of the efforts that have been made to help establish some continuity within the association. We are constantly looking to the future when making plans and setting goals. Before decisions are made we review the impact this will have on VASFAA next year, as well as in the years to come. In fact, some of the goals and committee work that has begun this year will be carried over into next year.

If you are an experienced school professional, find a newer professional and take him/her under your wing. I recall my earlier days in financial aid and my first exposures to VASFAA. I never had a formal mentorship relationship with anyone, but I had a host of informal mentors. There were, and still are, people within the association who saw something in me that they thought would be beneficial to VASFAA. Through their guidance, counsel, and support, I have been able to participate in a wide array of VASFAA activities.

In hind site, this was a very simple process. I think sometimes we make mentorship more complicated than it has to be. People saw something in me, presented me with opportunities, and I took some risks in getting involved. That’s the short version of how this worked, and I have grown tremendously throughout this process. If each of the current experienced school members did that for a new member, imagine the impact that would have on new member involvement.

Our desire is to have an association of continuity. I believe this is achievable if we work together. Volunteerism of experienced and new members is key to the process. Let’s work together to “keep the light shining.”

Brad Barnett
VASFAA President-Elect

Two Special Features Based on Planning and
Goal Setting for Students

1. Setting up a Spending Plan

Students who make a spending plan and stick with it can take advantage of the convenience of using credit without risking the perils of possible finance charges and fees.

Living within a budget, or a spending plan, is a matter of students putting away money now for later needs and spending no more than the amount they have left. The key is to differentiate between things they need now or in the future and those they want. These steps will help them:

· decide how much to save from each paycheck for needs like utilities, rent, and phone bills
· be realistic about payments they owe from past expenditures and how much the necessities of life cost

If your students keep these amounts in mind, or better yet, put money away in separate accounts to cover them, they’ll know how much is left to spend on luxuries they want. They should resist making new purchases unless they’re certain they can pay for them when the bill arrives. This practice protects them from added fees or expenses.

The bottom line: Don’t let buying habits dictate saving habits. As long as students keep their long-term needs in mind, it should be easy to create a budget that helps them meet those needs and take care of their wants.

Submitted by Juan Perez, Regional Director National Student Loan Program


2. Setting Goals Is an Important Student-Retention Step

Establishing clear goals is a key to successfully implementing a plan for enhancing student retention on your campus.

Your priorities for bolstering student retention must have the support and commitment from all campus constituents — especially those involved in the development and delivery of retention strategies. The online guide “Solving the Retention Puzzle” advises that retention goals should be informed by your school’s persistence data and other campus-assessment data, both quantitative and qualitative measures. Carefully examine all sources of survey data, and consider input from faculty, staff, students and administrators as you establish the following six student-retention goals:

1. Institutional goals. The best-retaining institutions focus on the effectiveness of campus-wide retention programs and services such as advising, quality service and student tracking.
2. Recruitment goals. The best-retaining institutions focus on recruiting students who have the greatest opportunities to be successful, based on past student performances.
3. Persistence goals. The best-retaining institutions may choose to focus on improving the success rates of all students or of specific groups of students, such as those in specific majors, athletes, minorities or others.
4. Student-outcomes goals. The best-retaining institutions focus on improving the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the educational experience, such as increasing the freshman grade-point average, successfully placing students in jobs related to their majors, and increasing the percentage of students getting into the graduate programs of their choice.
5. Course goals. The best-retaining institutions focus on improving their students’ opportunities for success in individual courses by monitoring the pass/fail rates for “killer” courses, making more tutors available to support specific courses, and increasing the GPA course by course.
6. Student-satisfaction goals. The best-retaining institutions focus on both expectations and levels of student satisfaction with a goal of reducing the size of the performance gap (the difference in student expectations and level of satisfaction) for the entire student body or specific groups of students.
“Solving the Retention Puzzle” offers a retention-goal worksheet to complete for each of the goals your campus establishes, and a sample worksheet to guide the development of those goals.

The guide “Solving the Retention Puzzle” provides guidance to postsecondary institutions about enhancing persistence and graduation rates, thereby contributing to lower student-loan default rates.

Submitted by: Richard Burt, USA Funds Services

National Alert

The Department of Education suggested that this should be circulated again as school has begun.

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004
From: FSA Customer Support <FSA.Customer.Support@ED.GOV>
Subject: Summary: Someone impersonating a U.S. Department of Education official is offering students grants for a processing fee.

Dear Partner:

The following Electronic Announcement was posted to the IFAP web site at http://ifap.ed.gov/. It is being cross-posted to FINAID-L for your information

FSA Customer Service Call Center, U.S. Department of Education
Publication Date: July 13, 2004
Author: General Manager, FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services

It was brought to our attention recently that someone claiming to be a representative of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is calling students, offering them grants, and asking for their bank account numbers so a processing fee can be charged. Specifically, the caller tells the student he understands the student has federal student loans and offers to replace the loans with an $8,000 grant. The caller explains that a processing fee must be charged and obtains the student's checking account information.

We urge you to remind your students that there is no ED program to replace loans with grants and that there is no processing fee to obtain Title IV grants from ED. Furthermore, students should never provide their bank account or credit card information over the phone unless they initiated the call and trust the company they are calling. We recommend that you immediately e-mail or otherwise contact your current and incoming students to warn them about this scam. A student who is a victim of this or a similar scam should take the following steps:

1. Immediately contact his or her bank, explain the situation, and request that the bank monitor or close the compromised account.
2. Report the fraud to ED's Office of Inspector General hotline at 1-800-MIS-USED (1-800-647-8733) or oig.hotline@ed.gov. Special agents in the Office of Inspector General investigate fraud involving federal education dollars.
3. Report the fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC has an online complaint form at www.ftc.gov/scholarshipscams and a hotline at 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357; teletype for the hearing impaired: 1-866-653-4261). The FTC will investigate if the fraud is deemed widespread; therefore, it is important that every student contacted by the person or people in question lodge a complaint so the FTC has an accurate idea of how many incidents have occurred.
4. Notify the police about the incident. Impersonating a federal officer is a crime, as is identity theft.

When filing complaints, the student should provide detailed information about the incident, including what was said, the name of the person who called, and from what number the call originated (if the student was able to obtain it via Caller ID). Additionally, if unauthorized debits have already appeared against the student's bank account, the student should mention this fact in his or her complaint. Records of such debits could be useful in locating the wrongdoer.

For information about identity theft prevention, you and your students may visit www.ed.gov/misused. For information about preventing financial aid scams, visit www.studentaid.ed.gov/lsa.

Sincerely,

Kay Jacks
General Manager
FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services