TASFAA Committee Report Summary

May Committee Reports

Activity & Resources Committee...
welcomed a new member to the committee – Valerie D. Gonzales, EdFund. Valerie represents her company throughout Texas and will serve as a great addition in gathering outreach information.

Lou Murray promoted the TRAINetwork at the 2007 ATLE Annual Conference. Handouts and a brief demo were given to the ATLE members. With the current industry issues among us and increased policies expected in the future, Server, Guarantor and Lender feedback regarding outreach activities is more important than ever. ATLE was challenged to increase their usage of the system and to assist school partners in documenting outreach activities taking place throughout the state.

The committee would like to remind each member of the board to utilize the TRAINetwork within their institution, as we enter the period surrounding financial aid awareness month.

Training Committee:
No report in May, will have one in July.

Treasurer Report:
Tia Clary provided a revised budget and actual expenditure reports.

Newsletter Committee:
We hope to have final newsletter out for August/September. Two articles, including one from Kevin Campbell, Dept. of Education, have been received. We anticipate the article summarizing the second survey will be included.

Awards Committee:
The Committee held a tele-conference meeting on Monday, May 7th at 9:30 am. All members were present. All committee members have been listed on-line at TASFAA website.

Our main three awards are:

1. The Hall of Fame – This usually goes to one person.
2. The Trailblazer – This goes to one person.
3. The Service Award – This goes to many people as long as qualify. Information about these awards is online at www.tasfaa.org/docs/toc_inside.html. Click on "Policies and Procedures (pdf)," pages 5 - 7. Also click "Leadership/Info" under the Awards Committee.

Mari will review the timeline and set our tentative dates. Since there are so few, nominations for Hall of Fame and Trailblazer will be collected individually by Scott. Emails soliciting nominations will go out in late May.

Since there are so many nominations for the Service Award, these will be collected on-line at a TASFAA Website. Lisa will send out email soliciting names. Assistance is requested from the Communications Committee to set up the on-line process for service award.

We also discussed ways to make these awards more meaningful, visible and fun, such as having PowerPoints at the Awards Luncheon, pictures as service winners pick up their pins, collecting quotes from the old timers, and etc...

The TASFAA President has also charged us with the task of reviewing the Service Award. The question on the table is should TASFAA Service Awards go for years of Financial Aid Service in the STATE OF TEXAS or simply for years of Financial Aid Service. While there was a good argument for giving the service award only to those who served in Texas only, the committee’s official recommendation to the board is to give the award to those who meet the length of service requirement regardless of which state they worked in financial aid. Reasons for the recommendation are:

1. We wanted to recognize as many persons as possible.
2. NASFAA does not give out service awards.
3. Many who work in financial aid move from place to place now.
4. If we do not recognize those who have worked in financial aid and then recently moved to Texas, then no one will.

If the board takes the awards committee’s recommendation on this matter then policy and procedures will need to be modified.

The committee considered new awards to present to board. These awards would have different purposes from current awards. Possible awards are: Award For High School Counselors; Financial Aid Counselor Award; and Lender Rep. Award.

June Hagler provided the following reports:

Past President Report

TASFAA Time Capsule
I have updated the years that were missing from the TASFAA Website Time Capsule. If there are any additions or corrections, please let me know so I can send to Communications Committee for ATAC publishing right after the Board meeting.

President’s Advisory Council (PAC) for Planning and Evaluation Report:

Members: Linda Hensgen, Earl Hudgins, Lyn Wheeler, Karen Krause

The TASFAA Board will complete TASFAA’s Strategic Plan; Initiative #3: TASFAA Fiscal Stability the morning before the call to order of the Board on May 23. Finalized Plan will be submitted to the Board for approval at the May Board meeting.

If time permits, we will develop an organizational chart of committees with possible changes for 2007-2008 in committee structures.

Business Continuity/Recovery Plan Task Force Report:

Committee: Earl Hudgins, Cheri Whitten, Carolyn Jones, Trevor Summers, Lou Murray

The committee submits a proposed Plan that was reviewed via email on 4/20/07. The draft plan was based somewhat on SWASFAA’s recovery plan that was drafted after LASFAA’s experiences with Katrina. The following email discussion was good about additions needed to the plan. Some suggestions have been incorporated in the draft presented at the May Board meeting.

Carolyn suggested FileBanc as a service/software for everyone to back up reports, minutes, hard drives, pdf & html files, etc. A review of their website (www.filebanc.com) shows data is encrypted when exported and kept secure with easy retrieval with any number of users. Charges start at $2.99 a month with a 30-day free trail offer. Their business purpose is to “store data offsite so business data is protected from disaster.” If the decision is to use such a service, the Plan could be changed to incorporate appropriate procedures.

We need technical suggestions to address Cheri’s concern about data that would be in jeopardy if the Association’s laptops were stolen or lost.

Sponsor Relations Committee:
Current status of our sponsorship and as it stands for sponsorship, we have 34 sponsors, and out of the 34, "9" are Platinum Level meaning they have sponsored all activities i.e. Spring Regional Training, New Aid Officer's Week, Fall Conference, Outreach, Electronic Newsletter, and the rest of the sponsorship levels varies on what the vendor/lender sponsored. Provided a listing of Sponsors to Lisa Blazer, Spring Regional Training Chair and Host site – Hostess to distribute to the participants. Sponsors that completed Lisa Blazer’s request form of sponsorship were notified and encouraged to complete the online sponsorship form. Provided a listing of Sponsors and e-mail addresses to New Aid Officer’s Week Chair, Courtney May, to post at the session site. Notified Mariko Gomez, Chair of the Electronic Newsletter, of the Sponsors and informed sponsors to provide an updated or review their banner on the Electronic Newsletter. Working with Paula Gordon – ATAC to have these updated as well as the pop-up box. Informed and notified Paula Gordon – ATAC of the Platinum sponsors to have the TASFAA website main page updated to reflect the Sponsor’s. Will be informing Fall Conference and Outreach of their Sponsors.

Membership Committee:
The committee was contacted by Beverly Cottingham and she requested lifetime membership. The committee forwarded Beverly’s information to the President in mid-February for the board to discuss and approve Beverly’s status of Lifetime membership. The committee would like further guidance on how the board would like Lifetime Membership information represented on the TASFAA website.

ATAC lists ZERO membership institutions that have not renewed their membership from last year. Obviously this information is incorrect and has been brought to the Communication Committee attention. The committee then ran a report for non- current members within ATAC and this report shows 189 institutions as of May 14th. However, some of these institutions no longer participate in our industry. The committee is contacting each of the eligible institutions via email to encourage membership renewal. The committee will continue to run an updated report on ATAC and will contact prospective members again in August/September before the TASFAA Conference.

The committee is working on updating the Membership goals and objectives. The committee is also providing information to the Public Relations Committee to be included in the TASFAA annual report.

Public Relations Committee

TASFAA Banner – The cost for a new TASFAA Banner is $150 for 42” x 96”. The board was sent the design earlier in the spring and decided they would make a decision at May’s board meeting.

NASFAA State Awards – Everything was submitted in February for Jimmy Parker’s and George Torres’ legislative work. However, the representative with NASFAA had difficulty opening the Powerpoints and several more were sent by Jimmy Parker and Anne Walker. Anne received confirmation in mid-March that NASFAA had received all the appropriate materials.

Anne Walker, the Chair of the Public Relations Committee, has accepted the position of Director of Student Financial Services at Rice University as of July 1st. She intends on finishing her tenure with the PR Committee and does not foresee that this will change her involvement with TASFAA.

TASFAA Annual Report – TG can no longer financially or creatively support the production of the TASFAA Annual Report. The committee received 2 bids to print the publication in its current format:

A&E Graphics, Houston – over $6000 for 1000 copies
Horizon Printing, Austin – $1798 for 1000 copies

Horizon Printing was the company TG used last year to print the report. Layout and design is another factor in cost, running anywhere from $50 to $125 per hour. Mike Hall at Texas Bank is currently working on the layout for TASFAA at no charge. The cover design is attached.

The TASFAA board needs to decide if they want to fund the printing of this publication. If the board chooses not fund the printing of the annual report, then the committee would send a PDF version of the document to all TASFAA members.

SWASFAA Delegate Report:
The SWASFAA Board of Directors met in Arlington, Texas April 30 through May 1st. The following items were discussed and are being presented to the Board for your information and or appropriate action:

• Michael Bennett, NASFAA Chair-Elect, gave the Board an update on the NASFAA conference being held in Washington D. C July 8 -11. The 2008 conference will be in Orlando, Florida July 6 - 9. The 2009 conference will be in San Antonio and the 2010 in Denver.
  
  In light of what is going on with the preferred lender list issue, Michael reminded us to review NASFAA’s Monograph #15 which addresses preferred lender lists.
  
  The fall training topic is currently “The Impact of Professional Judgment on Need Analysis” but Reauthorization will supersede this if passed.
  
  Michael gave us a presentation entitled “You Know What” addressing the current lender issues. It provided us a history leading up to Senator’s Cuomo’s investigation. Perhaps this presentation can be given at New Aid Officers.
  
  
• At this time, it was decided SWASFAA would not take an official stand on the lender/school controversy going on. It will take a wait-and-see approach awaiting other developments such as NASFAA coming out with its own Code of Conduct.
  
  
• There was an issue regarding the SWASFAA conference and having to pay an additional amount for rooms not used. Apparently, the hotel thought people were staying through Friday evening. We need to make certain rooms blocked for the TASFAA conference have a Friday check-out.
  
  
• The membership committee asked us to remind our schools to check on their SWASFAA membership and make sure they are up-to-date on it and if not a member to please consider becoming one.
  
  
• The SWASFAA Nominations and Elections Committee are seeking nominations for the following positions for the 2008 year: President-Elect, Secretary, and Delegates-at-Large from Oklahoma and Texas. Candidates must be employees of member institutions of SWASFAA, possess strong leadership abilities and have a commitment to the growth of SWASFAA. Nominations may be submitted online by logging on to the SWASFAA web site at www.swasfaa.org. Nominations should be submitted by June 11, 2007. Please ensure that you have received the person’s willingness to seek office.
  
  
• The SASFAA/SWASFAA Mid-Level Training Workshop "Tools of the Trade" will be held Sunday, June 17th - Tuesday June 19th at the Crowne Plaza Suites in Arlington Texas. The Topics are: The EFC, Conflicting Information, Ethics, and Communication Skills. The workshop cost is $175 per SWASFAA/SASFAA member, $225 per non-member. The room cost is $99.00/night. The room block will close May 28th.
  
  
• Lisanne Masterson, the SASFAA President-Elect, mentioned that advertising needs to be given a value and taxed even if tax exempt. Need to follow up on this.

Fall Conference Committee:
The 2007 TASFAA Fall Conference Committee is well underway in planning our annual fall conference. In light of current and prospective changes in the financial aid industry, we of the conference committee are proceeding with caution as to fully comply with any established code of conduct. We have also recently completed our tentative schedule (attached) that is being processed for placement on the TASFA website. We feel this session schedule not only provides informative and educational sessions, but those with a touch of relaxation as well. Our only concern is budgeting.

To date, we have only a limited number of sponsors. And several of those who have contributed have contributed at lower levels than in previous years. While this was expected, there are fewer than initially planned. Through discussions with Sponsor Relations, we feel that there may be a few more sponsors over the course of the year, but sponsor dollars will well fall short of previous conferences. It is for this reason, and the desire to leave as much reserve for next year, that we have been frugal in our planning; but at the same time we wish to offer an excellent and enjoyable conference.

Our theme this year is “Leadership, Integrity, Success! The Waves of Change.” It is our goal to provide a conference that not only upholds our integrity and commitment to students, but also reestablishes ourselves as leaders in education. We are currently considering Mike Jones as our keynote speaker. Mr. Jones is a former Houston Police Helicopter Pilot and four-time officer of the year who has created “Discover Leadership Training.” Depending on cost, we plan on having him lead a small interactive program for our opening luncheon.

Our last request (this time) is from you, the board. We ask for your help in participating in a conference session entitled, “Ask the Board.” This session is planned as a question and answer session between the board and the membership. This time can be beneficial for the membership in that they can ask important questions regarding “where” TASFAA is headed, and also be briefed on important messages.

Mentoring, Diversity & Leadership Initiatives Committee:
Discussed the following: HBC Membership; requested review of several colleges and universities to determine who are/are not TASFAA members (Huston-Tillotson, Wiley College, Prairie View A&M University, Jarvis Christian, Paul Quinn) – Gather contact info, (email and phone numbers) for each to make contact and invite to participate in TASFAA.

Dana is to compose an e-mail to send to each school interested in joining TASFAA. Send copy of TASFAA Annual Report. Joyce is to mail Annual Report to each contact once we have contact info for each location. Carolyn is to contact Melissa for a cover letter to be included with the Annual Report. Sharon will verify addresses. Elisa will get info for St. Phillips and forward to Dana. We discussed elections and the need to have diversity among on the board members. Sharon will contact Marcus to determine how members get nominations. Don and Sharon will work with Marcus to offer help. We had a round table discussion on what committee members would like to accomplish this year. Some ideas discussed were:

• A conference session or table available at TASFAA Fall Conference to encourage more member participation.
• “How Do You Get Involved”
• Include committee members on display screen at conference
• Committee ribbons
• “Ask Me” buttons for committees/chair
• Advertise committee posters during sessions. List chair, vice chair, and all members (Carolyn may handle this).

Contact all institutions and tell leadership to encourage employees to volunteer.

Community Service: Incorporate a committee event at TASFAA Fall Conference in Galveston with area High Schools. Elsa will contact school to ask what they may need. Augustine & Don will coordinate transportation for members. Elsa will send e-mail to share info with whole staff and contact their mentors and protégées. Augustine will set up timeline.

July Committee Reports

Treasurer Tia Clary provided the Balance Sheet and Budget vs. Actual Expenditures report.

Newsletter:
The final newsletter by this committee is scheduled to be issued in early/midSeptember.

In addition to the standing pieces of “Where are They Now” and letter from TASFAA’s president and copies of all committee reports, we hope to include the following:

• Brief Q&A from Kevin Campbell, Dept. of Education
• Article on Mark Whitaker
• Article from attendee to New Aid Officers’ Workshop
• Thank You article from a recipient of the Mack Adams Scholarship
• Summary of Newsletter Survey
• Article from first-time attendee to NASFAA Conference

Past President Report:
To be provided later.

SWASFAA Delegate Report:
No report since the SWASFAA Board will not meet until September 24th. The only important item going on at the present is SWASFAA elections which end Friday, July 20th.

Finance Committee:

Strategic Plan Objective: Develop an Investment Policy

Short Term Goal: 2006-07 year.

Action Step: Write an investment policy and mission statement – We are asking the board members to complete a quick survey to help identify what should be included in the investment policy. I have also attached a copy of SASFAA’s Guide to Investments section from their P&P manual. Do we really need to have an actual mission statement or can we just identify a guide and what our policies are? Please see attached survey and submit to Lisa Blazer. Proposed Completion: End of 2006-07 year.

Action Step: Review other associations’ policies and suggest P&P changes. We would like to model the formatting of our policies based on SASFAA’s P&P manual and their Guide to Financial Management. You can actually review this information on their website. Proposed Completion: End of 2007-08 year. Highlights of the manual were presented.

Scholarship Committee:
Nothing to report at this time.

Membership Committee:
Janet Barger from Wachovia has resigned from the Membership Committee citing that due to current pending legislation and the industry environment, Wachovia does not believe that their participation on association boards or committees is in the best interest of Wachovia or the associations at this time.

The committee continues to contact past members that have not renewed for this year. There are less than 50 organizations that have not renewed. We believe as the Fall Conference approaches some of these organizations will renew in order to attend the conference. We have 238 institutions that are current members.

Fall Conference Committee:
Progress is continuing for the 2007 TASFAA Fall Conference being held at the Galveston Island Convention Center, October 3 - 5. All rooms at the Hilton, San Luis, and Holiday Inn have been reserved. Two additional hotels have been announced to the membership as a result. These are the Best Western Beachfront Inn (5914 Seawall Blvd) and Quality Inn & Suites (5924 Seawall Blvd). We do not have a block at these hotels; there is merely a low rate, and rooms are open until filled. I do not anticipate any difficulty with TASFAA members securing rooms, however we will make additional arrangements if necessary. Both additional hotels are sizable, and should substantiate those who still need rooms. Both hotels are also within a very short walking distance from the convention center, only separated by a Kroger grocery store. There is transportation provided for those staying at the San Luis and Holiday Inn. The convention center sends a shuttle van on a constant rotation to each hotel, and will drive attendees to the convention center. This is at no additional charge to TASFAA.

Our meals have also been set, with a light lunch provided for our opening luncheon and a Luau with entertainment at dinner. Thursday morning will be a continental breakfast, with a fajita salad for lunch. Thursday evening is an open night for attendees, and a full breakfast will be served for Friday morning’s general sessions. What has not been set are the breaks. We are currently considering only pitchers of water and tea for Wednesday afternoon, with no food. The same is being planned for Thursday morning; however soft drinks will be substituted for tea. There is a larger break with food planned for Thursday afternoon, as dinner is not provided. Feel free to consult me with any suggestions.

What is of most concern is the list of sessions. We have confirmed the majority of sessions, but are still short approximately five sessions. Some of the initial presenters have opted not to present. We do expect to have this rectified shortly. The full schedule of sessions will be sent to the printers once all have been confirmed. This will also be posted online when completed.

Overall, I am pleased with the committee’s progress this year. All members have devoted a great deal of time and effort into providing a quality conference. Our only setbacks have been a lack of sessions, changes to the financial aid landscape, and corporate layoffs. Future conferences will be better suited once federal regulations have been solidified.

In closing, I would like to present a rough outline of what should be considered in the Conference Budget. This discussion was something on which we spent much time in the last board meeting. A list of approximate costs was provided. The total of this list is $160,700 (This was based on the largest cost of each item. Keep in mind that this amount will increase with inflation, and drastic changes in the marketplace.)

I have not seen a detailed breakdown/estimate of the conference budget in the three years I have served on the committee. This should help in guiding any future decisions on what amounts should be set for the conference, as well as decide what expenses are necessary/unnecessary.

Vice President's Report:
Plans are currently being finalized for the October 2 - 3 Board Meeting as well as the October 4th Board Meeting. I am working with Micah to wrap up all arrangements.

I have submitted a request for the Volunteer form to be updated to Marcus. Hopefully the Volunteer form will be open for use starting August 1, 2007. We will have the form open through September 1, 2007 then start letting Vice Chairs pick members so that they may start work at the Fall Conference.

Nominations and Elections Committee:
The Nominations Committee has completed the online nomination process. The slate of candidates was submitted to the board on Monday, July 2, 2007. The committee is waiting for a full board approval. After approval, the committee will contact those nominees to accept their nomination and move forward with the election process.