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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Hello MASFAA! I had the honor and privilege of representing MASFAA as the president-elect-in-training at the NASFAA Leadership Conference a couple weeks ago. As many of you may know, NASFAA coordinates an annual leadership conference every February with a variety of training tracks. My training track was Association Governance. Nearly all of the 9 MASFAA states had representation at this training track or one of the three other training tracks. I had a great time interacting with so many great MASFAA colleagues throughout the conference.

While I have been a state president in Indiana, this conference made me realize how long ago that really was (2001!). Let’s just say that I feel younger than I really am, but my hairline says something else. Here I am about 17 years later with three grown boys out of the house taking on a new role with MASFAA. I get to work with financial aid colleagues that don’t remember things like Y2K, FFELP, or a world before the financial aid application was FREE. That all said, interacting with new financial aid colleagues helps ignite my passion for our profession and my MASFAA colleagues. In DC I was able to visit with dear MASFAA friends and make some new friends that I hope will get involved in MASFAA efforts.  

almost feel qualified to lead MASFAA—but I am so glad I’ve got some more time to plan. This conference made me realize I’ve got a lot of work to do between now and October when Nick Prewett will be passing me a gavel. By the way, I am predicting a great Minneapolis conference and a humorous, inspirational farewell speech from Nick. 

I was able to spend some quality time at the conference sitting next to Kathy Bialk, the newest Director of Financial Aid at the University of Iowa and our MASFAA treasurer-elect-in-training. Kathy and I took copious notes and often whispered at each other…”Is that in the P and P? Is that on the website? Who does our bonding? When is our audit?” Needless to say, we each have a lot of follow up planned.

On the final day of the conference I was able to visit three congressional offices with some of my Hoosier colleagues (Leo Hertling from Purdue and Alex DeLonis and Ben Burton from Ivy Tech). If you have never done a hill visit, I can tell you it never gets old—I think I’ve done about six separate hill visits now. Seeing Capitol Hill, Senate and House buildings, the Supreme Court—and then talking to our representatives is really a cool experience as we petition our government to invest in the students we serve.

Left to Right: Leo Hertling, Ben Burton, Alex DeLonis, Marvin Smith


In closing, I would like to sincerely thank MASFAA and the membership for sending me to Washington. It was a great time and I am thankful for the opportunity. I am inspired to serve the membership and hope I can ensure our organization continues to prosper.

Marvin Smith, Director of Student Financial Services, IUPUI and MASFAA President-Elect

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