State Update: Missouri

(by Angela Karlin, Missouri Representative)

Happy Spring! The sun is shining and birds are singing and MASFAP is busy bringing professional development opportunities to our membership!

Professional Development, led by Co-Chairs, Chelsey Giles and Crystal Bruntz, have planned and hosted three events this semester with two more in the works before June. All three events had record setting attendance and filled our meeting rooms to capacity!

In late February, MASFAP hosted Business Officers and Registrars at two separate events. Zack Goodwin, from ED provided training specific to these important campus partners and how their offices and financial aid overlap in areas of compliance and the importance of campus teamwork. After the formal presentation, the afternoon session was a roundtable format for participants to share concerns and best practices.

On April 1st, MASFAP held the first in a series of six NASFAA credentialing events. Verification and Packaging were the featured topics and now 74 MASFAP members are eligible to take the exam for their NASFAA credentials in these areas! Besides the amazing work being done by our Professional Development committee, the spring semester has also been a busy time for our Leadership Symposium participants. On March 27th, the group met in Springfield, MO to discuss leadership topics and take part in a half-day team building activity. The team building activity was a “ropes” course for the mind, led by Tim Eberle from the Leadership Ranch. Participants worked as teams to solve problems that stretched our minds and made us realize how important each one of us is to the team regardless of title or status within the organization. This group will continue to work together throughout the year to build MASFAP leaders for the future. They say a picture is worth a thousand words…or in this case a thousand giggles!