MASFAA 2018-19 Planning and Event Updates

Submitted by Marvin Smith, MASFAA President, Executive Director of Student Financial Services, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Dear MASFAA Friends and Colleagues:

I hope all is well and you are ready for the holiday season.  Your MASFAA leadership has been busy since the wonderful conference in Minneapolis this past October. A lot of good work is occurring. Some of the highlights…

• MASFAA has a new “MASFAA Moments” YouTube Channel.

• MASFAA is planning a monthly training and development webinar series to begin in January, 2019. Members are encouraged to submit your ideas regarding our webinar series name. Stay tuned to your favorite MASFAA social media channel for more details.

• MASFAA is planning for the 2019 Summer Institute and Leadership Symposium to be held at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI) June 3-7, 2019 around the theme “Soar to Your Future”.

• MASFAA’s 2019 Annual Conference will be held at the Chicago Lombard Westin on October 6-9, 2019. I encourage members to check out the inspiring 2019 MASFAA Annual Conference video built around our conference theme “Champions of Tomorrow”.

• Nick Prewett, Financial Aid Director at the University of Missouri and immediate past MASFAA president represented MASFAA at the Ohio fall conference in Columbus, OH where OASFAA celebrated their 50^th anniversary (!). OASFAA invited back all the past presidents and had them line up across the stage and give a bit of a background story for OASFAA.  Nick noted that he won thousands of dollars at their casino night. If anyone needs any money contact Nick Prewett.

• Michele Trame, Financial Aid Director at the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana and MASFAA president-elect represented MASFAA at the Missouri fall conference. MASFAP was held at the Lodge of the Four Seasons Resort in Lake Ozark, MO where apparently Missouri folks go to get re-energized. Michele got to hang out with Nick Prewett since Nick never misses a conference opportunity to play games of skill and chance like BINGO and have fun with colleagues.

• I had the pleasure of representing MASFAA at the West Virginia fall conference. Note this conference was actually held as a joint conference at the Rocky Gap Resort in Flintstone, MD in combination with the Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, DC area financial aid associations (referred to as the “Tri-State” association). WVASFAA made me feel special and welcome. The combination conference worked nicely. I will always remember this conference fondly—it was great to connect with friends and colleagues.

• We’ve had more than fifty MASFAA members volunteer to serve on a committee or taskforce. If you volunteered and have not been plugged into a volunteer opportunity please send me an email (Marvin Smith, mlsiii@iupui.edu).

• Finally, I’m pleased to announce that MASFAA has begun to develop a new Strategic Plan that will be led by past MASFAA presidents Sara Beth Holman (Lawrence University in Wisconsin) and Dick Battig (Model College of Hair Design in Minnesota). Watch for your chance to provide input in the coming months.

I hope you all have a happy holiday and a great new year. Stay tuned to hear more about the good work that keeps getting done by and for MASFAA members.  

Love, MASFAA

Happy Wednesday, MASFAA!  Are you feeling in <3 with all of the Financial Aid things happening?  If not, maybe you’ll love the news that I have for you today. 

In case you didn’t realize it by the way this blog post came to you– the MASFAA listserv is BACK!  We heard you, and we made it happen.  The email address is the same as it always was – masfaal@masfaaweb.org.  Feel free to continue to use the job board or forums on the website in addition to the listserv.

Speaking of the website, we just want to make sure that our members know how to use our awesome new website.  The number one thing to remember – if you can’t find something that you’re looking for – LOGIN!  Some of the menu choices for members only won’t show up unless you’re logged in.  The log in button is a little person on the top right of the page on a desktop, and if you’re on your mobile device, it looks like an arrow in a door.

If you need ANY assistance at all with our website, please contact any member of the Communications and Electronic Initiatives Committee.  All of the members of the committee are listed here: https://masfaaweb.wildapricot.org/CEI/

Been missing our blog lately? So have we!  We’d love to hear what’s been going on in your state, or anything that you’d want to contribute to the MASFAA blog: professional development topics, advocacy efforts, etc.  Anyone can contribute a blog, not just members of our committee (though we’d love to have you).  Send submissions or ideas to blog@masfaaweb.org and our committee will work with you to get those out to the membership.

Things to look for in the coming weeks: an update from the recent executive council meeting in Minneapolis at the site of the conference in October, announcements about our summer training opportunities (Summer Institute and Leadership Symposium may be getting a facelift – stay tuned!), lots of conference teasers and info, and of course – before you know it, the ballot!

So keep your eyes in your inbox for updates from MASFAA, and have a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Plant Seeds for the Future

by Nick Prewett, 2017-2018 MASFAA President

I’ve heard many times that you don’t find financial aid, it finds you.  So like many I started in financial aid a number of years ago because I was looking for a job. What started as a job, changed when I attended my first financial aid conference.  For me that was the Kansas financial aid conference.  For those of you new to the profession, this was pre-social media and when you paid per text.  I was amazed at how many people knew each other and cared about each other and   I’ll be honest, I felt a bit like an outsider. But as I got to know more and more people, I have developed friendships and built my own financial aid family. Our friends and family that are not in financial aid see the fun side of financial aid.  They don’t understand 399’s, conflicting information, R2t4, or many of the other annoying things we live on a regular basis.  Financial aid associations are where we can let our hair down and ask questions without being judged (well, sometimes we judge…). 

MASFAA is one of those life changing experiences. Use MASFAA to experience the fun, challenging, and rewarding side of financial aid.  Experiences make us who we are, they fill our buckets, but we need to ensure we fill other people’s buckets.  We were given an amazing organization, but it is time for us to make it better not only for ourselves but for the future of financial aid administrators.  It is time to plant seeds for the future, to pay it forward.  My challenge to MASFAA for the next year is to focus on who we are and what we can do to help our students.  To do that we need to have an organization that is strong enough to provide the training and support to advocate for student aid.  That comes from member involvement and member commitment.  This is our association and we get as much out of it as we put into it.

I encourage you to make MASFAA your own. Volunteer for a committee, find a mentor, build relationships and create your own financial aid family that you will rely on for the rest of your career. This is your organization, and it takes your commitment and passion to keep it successful, so help us make it great!

Thank you… and a challenge!

by Chad Olson, Iowa State University

I wanted to say “thank you” to those who nominated me for the MASFAA Meritorious Service Award.  Receiving this award is a very humbling honor, and I appreciate being recognized.  Financial aid is an industry built on the backs of hard working, determined individuals.  Being listed among the ranks of prior winners is something that I do not take lightly.

I also wanted to issue a challenge to the 101 newcomers at the 2017 MASFAA Conference.  If you haven’t already, get involved!  Whether it’s on your campus, within your state association, MASFAA, or NASFAA, join a committee, write a blog entry, or advocate for students.  Professional development activities can add more commitments to your already busy schedule, but what you receive back cannot be measured. 

If you’re a newer or less involved member, join a large committee to meet lots of people!  Offer to help your program or local arrangements committee, so you can influence the direction of your conference.   Attend the MASFAA Summer Institute or Leadership Symposium, where you’ll quickly bond with other association members, and gain valuable knowledge.  Apply to join a NASFAA Task Force.  Look for mentors both internally and externally from financial aid.  Take advantage of leadership development activities on your campus to build connections at your institution.

All of the professional experiences I’ve had within IASFAA, MASFAA, and NASFAA have helped me within my position at Iowa State University.  The network of friends and colleagues I’ve developed is an amazing secondary benefit.  As President Prewitt alluded to when he took the gavel recently, you build a network you can discuss financial aid concerns, office politics, and even personal interests with. 

Even if it involves you stepping outside of your comfort zone, just get involved!  You’ll be glad you did!  

Now is the time!

Now is the time!  It’s time to jump in and get involved contributing to your profession in new ways.  MASFAA is gearing up for a new year and your 2017-2018 MASFAA committee chairs are now starting to develop their plans and build their teams for the work that lies ahead.  Come be a part of it.  Volunteer today as our association needs your knowledge, creativity, insights and passions to help us make a difference for our students, organizations and peers throughout our nine state region.

Thomas Ratliff

MASFAA President


Volunteer today
Below are images to show you what to expect from the form.

"Make Every Moment Count" - Be A Moderator

Want to know how you can "Make Every Moment Count" in Dayton? VOLUNTEER! We are asking everyone to help the planning committee by signing up to be a session moderator. If you've never been a moderator before, go out on a limb and try it! Email Jennifer Schroeder at jschroed@iastate.edu by August 31 stating your interest and if you have a specific session(s) you’d like to moderate.

Want to Make Something Great?

Have you ever had that one project you really wanted to do, but you didn’t feel like you had quite enough resources to make it happen as quickly as you’d like?  But if you got what you needed to make it happen, you just know it would be great!

That’s kind of what we feel with a terrific project our Communications and Electronic Initiatives Committee is doing.  They have taken on the ambitious challenge of setting up a totally new web presence for MASFAA.  Using a tool called Wild Apricot, this strong team has started diving in to restructure and design our new MASFAA website from scratch.  It’s a meaningful thing that we are all eager to see succeed this year.  There’s plenty of work to be done and having some additional MASFAA members join in would make things flow even better. 

Do you like being part of a team that is making something special happen?  Would you enjoy being able to help launch something that will be noticed for a long time?  Here’s your chance.  Complete a Volunteer Form today and mark that you want to be a part of the Communications/Electronic Initiatives Committee for 2016-2017. 

Thomas Ratliff

MASFAA President

***Note, the Communications and Electronic Initiatives Committee is having their first committee meeting next week, so please volunteer today!