President's Message
By Linda Gonzalez-Hensgen

Returning to "reality" after being at NASFAA has been a bit stressful this week. Again, I need to thank all of you for allowing me the privilege to serve you, but also for allowing me to have the opportunity to experience this year’s annual conference. As many of you, my institution also has some very severe budget issues and I probably would not have been able to go to Minneapolis if not for TASFAA’s sponsorship. It was a great conference in a great city. TASFAA was well represented as many of our members served as presenters and moderators. I was very disappointed as again we were passed over for a state award. I am not sure what strategy we need to take for the future, but so many award winners are for programs/initiatives that are the same or very similar to so many things we are doing. We have taken special effort to try and submit "unique" projects and I thought the Mack Adams Scholarship was truly unique. However, simple things such as a letter campaign regarding scholarship scams and a legislative training session (sound familiar) were the winners. Do not get me wrong, these are all good projects. I guess I am getting frustrated at trying to understand what type of project meets the standards for these awards.

I want to thank Maria Carrizales from UTEP for representing the TASFAA Public Relations committee at NASFAA. I think this young woman will be making a difference in our association soon and having her attend her first NASFAA as part of this committee was a great experience for her. While at the conference we began talking about next years plan for state award submissions again.

Summer will soon be over and October will be very soon after. I have been hearing great things from Arnold Trejo about the work of his Fall Conference Committee. The idea to ask for the membership to submit session proposals was so well received that the difficult work of deciding which ones to select is in progress. At the beginning of the year I gave Arnold a vision for our conference; I wanted us to "move it up a notch". I have always thought that organizations such as TACRAO have been wise in including very global sessions at their conference to help develop their membership for that next leadership role. I think we are a bit behind in this and, as a result, see most of our VPs for Enrollment Services or Student Services come from the Admissions and Registrars arena. That has been difficult for me to understand as we all know that someone working in a financial aid office for any period of time has to have a basic understanding of all areas of enrollment services. However, I can not really say that about our colleagues in the other areas. Everyone is too intimidated by the complicated profession of financial aid. I hope that this year’s conference will begin a trend for us in providing the professional development needed by our members for their next level in the career ladder. If not us…who?

I am now off that soap box and on to another.... I guarantee all of you that this will be one of the best fall conferences ever. In addition to the “meat “of the conference, the entertainment being planned is also incredible. However, someone made a comment the other day which I really agreed with and felt needed to be voiced to the entire membership. Many people put a lot of work into making sure TASFAA provides its members with a great conference. It is unfortunate then, that so many people do not take advantage of that and that our overall attendance at sessions is very low. A few years ago, Mariko Gomez wrote an article for the TASFAA Times on this and I just want to re-emphasize the importance of our “old-timers” on this issue. We have to lead by example and those new to our profession are indeed watching how we conduct ourselves. We influence their actions by ours so we must place importance on this conference and what it has to offer by attending sessions. I will now step down from the soap box for good

As this newsletter goes on line, TASFAA elections should be starting. Richard Silva and his committee have worked very hard and have presented a very impressive slate of candidates. I strongly encourage all of our voting members to exercise your voting privileges during this very important time.

When Karen Krause agreed to be the chair for our Constitution and By-laws committee this year, I do not think she had any idea how much work we would thrust on her. At our board meeting next week, the board will be finalizing the wording for submission to the membership to vote on a provision allowing our Associate members to have representation on the Board of Directors. This is an important issue.

The Financial Aid Steering Committee will be meeting on July 27, 2004 in Austin. The final document will be titled "Preparing for the Emerging Texas". Once the final report is submitted I think it will be very good. Actually, many of the changes recommended by the group are already being implemented by the Coordinating Board as they did not require legislative approval. I hope that the membership of TASFAA understands what a great undertaking this has been and the amount of dedication some of our members have shown in being part of this.

Raul Lerma and the Awards Committee are very excited with the nominations they have received for the Hall of Fame Award. This year will be the first that we have nominations for those persons that fall in the category of "Friends of the Association". This will help us honor not only our members who have dedicated their careers to serving students but also those that served TASFAA in a role outside of a school.

So much to do, with very little time to do it in. Come to Corpus and see how this all ends!!!!