NYSFAAA EXEC COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
December 13-14 , 2007
Buffalo, NY
(Official )
Council: , Kerry Lubold, Heather McDonnell, Nancy Teodecki, Angela Van Dekker,
Ursula Bisconti, Earl Trethway, Tom Dalton, Lynn Chilson,
Maria DeInnocentiis , Gina Soliz, Cindy Kohlman, Nancy Brewer, Curt Guame
Absent :Maria Barlaam
State Chairs: Anne Barton , Laura Worley, Kathy Michalski, Dan Dunn, Wayne Harewood, Dan Hunter, Mark Schwartz
HESC liaison: Jennifer Dwire
Meeting Called to Order, 1:04 PM – Heather
McDonnell
Secretary’s Report- Nancy Teodecki
Minutes of the September 10-11 meeting were distributed prior to meeting.
MOTION: To approve minutes of September. E.Trethway/M. DeInnocentiis.
Motion unanimously approved.
Issues: On Profit And Loss Budget report , line item ‘109 Misc’- when paying by credit card, the income is falling into this line. For the most part it is conference registration and dues. Tom will look into this further.
Conference 2007 may be a $40,000-50,000 loss. Checking still has $30,000+ but we’re now showing a negative cash flow.
MOTION: To draw $30,000 from Long Term investments and move over to the checking account. N.Teodecki/N Brewer.
Discussion: question if $30,00 is adequate and if we should reduce revenue sharing given our current financial status. Question raised if the June revenue sharing may have only paid out $5 per member versus $10. It was updated to $10 on November 2006 according to our Policy and Procedure manual
MOTION: Fulfill June revenue sharing and forego the January payment. K.Lubold/C Kohlman. Further discussion concerning the effect on each region’s budget if not receiving January payment. During this discussion this motion was suspended since there was already a motion on the floor. MOTION withdrawn by K. Lubold.
MOTION to Table the current motion ( “To draw $30,000….”) on the floor. C Guame/T Dalton. Motion unanimously approved.
MOTION: To move up to $60,000 from Long Term investment to the checking account. C.Guame/ N. Teodecki. Motion unanimously approved.
MOTION: Pay June revenue sharing according to amount stated in the current Policy and Procedure Manual. C.Guame/A.Van Dekker. Motion unanimously approved .
MOTION: For January revenue sharing per member for
this one-time only will be $5.00. M. DeInnocentiis/N/ Brewer.
VOTE on the January Revenue Sharing Motion - 7 Approved,
5 Opposed. Motion carries.
Heather commented that we
need to continue to look at revenue sharing for the future and our budget
issues- keeping SLATE in mind and the monetary needs for our ‘philanthropic
activities’.
2nd
Vice President’s Committees:
Professional Development – Ursula Bisconti/Mark Schwartz. Co-chairs (full report in Addendum)
Brought to committee’s attention regarding a concern of a ‘bank’ hosting a location for a Jim Briggs Tax training session. Heather asked co-chairs to be explicit in their notification of event that this complies with SLATE. Lynn Chilson will contact region to reach out for interest in a joint Region 1 & 2 session.
Novice Training – Lisa Simpson, co-chair, reported by H McDonnell
Brockport site visit by L. Simpson, B. Mack, D. Hunter & H. McDonnell. Would like to move Novice , to be held June 7-13, 2008, to this site, but still reviewing contract.
Committee meetings regularly. If you have any session topics in mind, let Gina know.
Committee is suggesting that the Awards Banquet be held on Wednesday evening and have the Thursday evening as the 40th Anniversary Celebration. Gavel would still be passed on Thursday evening.
1st Vice President’s Committees:
Membership – Adrienne King, co-chair, reported by Angela Van Dekker (full report in Addendum)
Membership down even after the conference. Adrienne had conference calls with regional membership representatives. Some concerns identified- remind membership of renewal & notification of non-payment on renewals. The good news is that now the total numbers are now up from last year at this time in December.
Question regarding a SUNYFAP member attending a NYSFAAA function- must be a NYSFAAA member to attend, unless we do a SUNYFAP/NYSFAAA ‘co-sponsored’ training event
Issue: Angela had a list of member applications or renewals for institutions not approved and reviewed these with council. She will contact the individuals at institutions who need to supply the documentation for council approve their membership.
Awards – Kathy Flaherty, reported by A VanDekker-(full report in Addendum)
Extra copies of the awards program from conference is available.
Mentoring – Dan Hunter, co-chair (full report in Addendum)
Would like to have 2 representatives in each region to co-ordinate the mentoring effort.
Set of recommendations via a power point presentation that the regional representatives can use to assist with recruiting ‘mentor’ volunteers. Dan presented this excellent presentation to Council. FYI, January 24th is “Thank You Mentor Day”
Secretary’s Committees:
School Outreach – Kathy Michalski, co-chair (full report in Addendum)
Will do mailing to High School & Middle School counselors in January – joint letter from NYSFAAA and HESC with ‘Applying for Financial Aid guideline piece and the 2008/09 Wall Chart.
Concern voiced by from Region3 regarding costs for these workshops: the region is requesting that we request funds from the Attorney General Office that has been collected to fund our counselor training workshops. Also, requested to provide a ‘Certificate of Completion’ to the counselors who attend the workshops.
Heather mentioned that she has asked Judi Miladin to be our ‘grant-writer’ and to request
all the funding that has been collected. She is waiting for Judi’s response.
Nancy Brewer asked other regions for their feedback regarding less time scheduled for workshops (since no lunches were provided.). Response: some regions had only provided ½ day workshop in the past , so no impact. Some regions in the past who had served lunch commented that folks leave after lunch
Laura Burns has accepted to co-chair due to Anne Barton’s move over to Development Committee. Committee member C. Kohlman gave update on website ideas- suggested an E.A. ‘Resource Page’ where materials can be ordered.
NYS Gear-UP- Cathy Patella, chair, reported
by N. Teodecki
Calendar designed in collaboration with the Early Awareness Committee. Will be available for council’s February meeting.
With New State Fair Director there is a major reorganization underway. No contracts are available yet. The AGO attended the December 11 planning meeting and will have a table this year.
Web Communications: .
Report was e-mailed to council prior to meeting to assist with discussion at meeting.
Question on Training Materials: If securing all training materials, this may affect access for Guidance Counselor. Also disclaimer should be mentioned on the training materials for those “Non-NYSFAAA Logo’ materials.
Would like added to site: Frequently Asked questions added, the Resource Center, Membership blocked for non-approved institutions, Template needed for Event Management to review costs,
Would like to see a fix on listserve: the ‘link’ provided in e-mails does not wrap
Issue on the Technology- are members up to the level of training to access?
For proposed design, council would like to see first before going live.
Nancy will review further with Ideta on all these issues. Dan Dunn also volunteered to work with Ideta on the technology issues.
MOTION: To move forward with designated upgrade and
redesign as proposed along with the additional changes discussed. K.Lubold/N.
Brewer. Motion unanimously approved.
Treasurer’s Committees:
Professional Ethics and Standards- Howard Leslie,
chair, reported by T. Dalton
New draft of Statement of Principles. Will present to council in February. Question from chair- when does committee engage membership in discussion? Council is to review first and then committee can request review by membership.
Budget issues were discussion during Treasurer’s Report.
Development – A. Barton, chair( full report in Addendum)
Discussion on how to solicit donations from members. Anne will send out e-mail regarding donations and highlight the ‘tax deductible’ clause.
President’s Committees
College Goal Sunday 2008- W. Harewood, co-chair (full report in Addendum)
Heather will do e-mail blast in early
January to recruit volunteers. Regions can follow-up to their respective
regions with their specific needs.
Funding raising issues- reaching out to
community- again looking at AGO pool of
funds. NYSFAAA may need to utilize
grant writing as a constant endeavor for resources versus just utilizing
the lending community.
Next Generation – Dan Dunn, Co-chair (full
report in Addendum)
No longer “age” limit to
volunteer for committee. Angela will send Dan any names of members who
volunteer via website.
Governance – Curt Gaume (full report in Addendum)
Constitutional Amendment passed. Discussion of Associate
Member as part of council with voting rights. Perhaps have a member as a
Liaison as a ‘voice of the associate members’?
Curt will take back to the Governance committee. Heather mentioned that
any member is always welcome to council meetings.
Government Relations – Christine Sears/ Jim Vallee- reported by H. McDonnell (full
report in Addendum)
Legislative forum set for 1st
week in March
Scholarship – Debra Evans- reported by H. McDonnell (full
report in Addendum)
T-shirts left over from conference. Some regional representatives asked that some be made available in the regions. Heather will contact Debra. Heather read a ‘Thank-you’ note from one of the scholarship recipients.
Diversity – Sharon Karwowski – no report
President’s report – Heather McDonnell (full
report in Addendum)
Issue: AGO presence at regional meetings. Heather asked Cindy to
report on the Region2 meeting that recently occurred. Several comments were
made at that meeting from both schools and lending representatives. One comment was about showing up a high
school nights. Heather mentioned that she has worked with the AGO to
co-ordinate their appearances at these nights and has worked with them since mid-November.
Cindy said that this was not the message given at the Region2 meeting; this
particular AGO was not contacted nor aware of any co-operative effort.
After much discussion Heather addressed
council- that the message needs to be out there: to get past the rhetoric, keep
moving forward , do our jobs, keep doing Financial Aid presentations.
Suggestion that Heather send out message to the list. She stated that by
council’s February meeting that we hope to see the language from Mr. Frey.
NASFAA Leadership training - Gina Soliz, Curt Guame and Cindy
Kohlman will attend.
HESC Report- Jennifer Dwire (full report in Addendum)
Student Loan “Market Place” initiative:
Feedback from student users at a few designated campus. Also invited schools to
HESC’s site on 12/18 for further discussion. Another round of student feedback
along with parents will be scheduled.
Regional Reports (full reports in Addendum)
Question from Nancy Brewer, Region7- how to come up with topics for meetings and
exchange ideas amongst regions? Nancy Teodecki mentioned that Judi Miladin,
when President, had asked regions to post their training presentations to the
website for members to utilize in their respective region.
Discussion: Should there be a ‘Regional
Chair’ listserv? Heather asked Regional Representatives to give her the names
of their Regional Chair to pursue further discussion.
A Van Dekker: Event Management
Get our hands around the costs so we can
re-instate using at regional level. N. Teodecki discussed that there are costs
for a ‘standard’ template and then add-on costs to enhance.
Nancy will check further with Ideta.
Nancy also mentioned that regions had asked about credit card usage for their
events.
MOTION: Credit card payment only be utilized for donations,
membership, conference and novice. A. VanDekker/M. DeInnocentiis. Motion
unanimously approved.
Issue: G. Soliz had a request to re-establish Graduate Concerns Committee. Heather said this committee has been reinstated and it is a sub-committee of Membership.
Issue: J.Dwire- can a focus group be formed to investigate a
“Certificate Program” which would provide certification of Financial Aid
Professionals? Council discussed the
past history of investigating this. There was a ‘Certificate of Education
Units’ thru Onondaga Community College at one time. Heather asked Gina to
contact Lorna Roberts at OCC for an update on this program . Further
suggestion- can attendees receive some
sort of certificate for completing training at Guidance Counselor workshops,
Novice, Annual Conference?
Heather decided to establish a TASK Force
to discuss these issue further and
asked J. Dwire, G. Soliz, K. Lubold, Dan Dunn, and M. DeInnocentiis to serve.
Issue: A VanDekker- need to revise Membership brochure. Asked that
members of council to review brochure on the website and send recommendations
to Angela and cc’d Adrienne King by
January 30th.
No further new business.
MOTION
to Adjourn 11:15 A.M.
K.Lubold/U. Bisconti
Angela VanDekker, VP for Membership, received request for organization, Urban Ed Express, to be added to our approved institutions. MOTION via e-mail on October 3, 2007: To add Urban Ed Express as an approved institution. N. Teodecki/A. Mason.
8 Ayes from those who responded via e-mail. MOTION
carries.
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE- King/Van Dekker
NYSFAAA MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE REPORT
Angela VanDekker, 1st Vice President
Adrienne King, co-chair; Claire Jacobi, co-chair
|
Region 1 - Carrie Newman; Leigh Bove |
Region 5 - Anne Gorrick |
|
Region 2 - Margaret Christian |
Region 6 - Michael Taylor |
|
Region 3 - Kathy Flaherty |
Region 7 -
Barbara Hazard |
|
Region 4 - Gerald Christie |
Region 8 -
Bonnie Evans |
Meetings
The committee has met twice via phone conference. The first meeting occurred on October 26 & the beginning of the meeting was a review of the history of the past 2 years of NYSFAAA’s membership. The history consisted of information regarding the change in personnel in the NYSFAAA 1st Vice President position. We also discussed our organization’s role in the new age of SLATE. We came up with ideas on how to reach the current & future members. We also welcomed new regional membership representatives for Regions 4, 6 & 7. After the first meeting, Angela sent a reminder email regarding membership renewal. These emails made our membership spring into action & renew their membership or begin sending their membership payments.
The second meeting occurred on December 7. We discussed the update in membership numbers; payments & adjustments to certain reports. The membership numbers were at 906 after the NYSFAAA Conference & are currently at 1,238 this is down by 137 from 2006-2007.In between the two meetings each regional representative was charged with contacting the membership within their respective regions. Some completed the charge via email or through the regional meetings.
During these past months the committee has discovered certain things:
Each regional representative has begun the process of reviewing their perspective regional statistics. They have contacted persons on those lists & begun strategizing ways of increasing our membership & decreasing the number of non-renewals. We have found that there are many persons on the non-renewal lists that have left the financial aid profession. We want to have those persons put on an inactive list instead of having them totally deleted from the system. All regional meetings are required to be membership only meetings. Some of the Regional Chairs or Regional Representatives have cross referenced the meeting attendees with Angela in terms of membership payments received. We have also noticed that our members have gone online, renewed, & forwarded their payment information to their employers billing offices only to be surprised to learn that NYSFAAA hasn’t received payment.
Report of
Membership Vice President. – A. Van Dekker
Since September the primary objective has been to resurrect the membership committee, lead its efforts and build membership from 306 on September 6, 2007 to a level similar to last year.
· Resulted in identification of several outstanding checks. Contacted SUNY Albany. They contacted Brenda Wright who found she had several checks. They were overnighted to me. Several other checks showed up with Tom.
CONFERENCE.
Improve membership processing.
Duplicate memberships and separately duplicate invoices.
To put in place edits to prevent duplicates.
Plan --to work with the treasurer to clarify processes, reconciliation and questions about credit cards and refunds. –request improvements to website to expedite membership concerns.
Questions to discuss:
· How to handle inactive members in the database.
· Whether to reprint the brochure
· SUNYFAP members attending NYSFAAA events and not members
· Outstanding Payment Issues; unpaid membership invoices and unpaid conference fees.
· Approved institutions and regional list serve opt out rather than opt in.
· Website improvements to support membership.
An updated spreadsheet comparing 10 years of membership data is attached.
Website
AWARDS COMMITTEE- Flaherty
The Awards Committee is responsible for coordinating regional awards and presenting these along with the statewide awards at the annual conference each fall.
In October 2007, the Conference Committee requested that the regional awards be presented at a luncheon while the statewide awards continued to be presented at the Banquet. We believe this arrangement worked well and would recommend that this become part of the conference schedule.
Also, this year for the first time we presented regional Rising Star awards. This new award category was well received. We do have copies of the banquet program if anyone is interested. Please contact Kathy Flaherty for a copy.
|
|
We met last week to discuss some of the directions
for the committee. The following are some of our recommendations:
1.
Request
from the regional chairs through the NYSFAAA Councilperson for two persons to
serve as co-regional members of the mentoring committee.
2.
When
selected, they will be sent a copy of the renewal and mentoring power point
presentation that Dick and Dan have prepared. This is to serve as an
orientation to the concept of mentoring.
3.
They
will be asked to contact up to five (5) relatively new members of their region
and personally invite them to the next regional meeting or training event.
4.
During
the next month and the remaining months of the spring semester, personally
invite the same five persons to each regional meeting or training event.
5.
Sometime
in spring, we would like to invite the co-regional members to a statewide focus
group meeting in Syracuse for a brainstorming session to discuss strategies and
direction for the committee.
6.
At
Novice training, will try to find an hour to do the mentoring presentation and
elicit names of people who are interested in being contacted regarding regional
and state training activities. These
names could be forwarded to the co-regional members of the committee.
Are there any questions or
comments?
School
Outreach COMMITTEE–
Michalski/Bridgewater
The school counselor workshops went very well. This is a preliminary report due to many workshops just being completed. I will submit a final report at a later date.
Region I Chairs – Kathy Michalski and Brian Levy
11/6/07 St. Bonaventure workshop
43 Attendees - Cost: $255.00
11/7/07 Classics V workshop
129 Attendees – up 27 counselors from prior year
Cost: $1564.23 food & screen rental
Mailing was $147.19
TOTAL COST: $1966.42
Region II Chair – Nancy VanZetta
No information at this time. Workshops were held on 11/29 & 11/30
Region III Chair – Kate Bellefeuille & Shane Rauh
11/2/07 Binghamton Regency
47 Attendees – Cost $573.07
11/14/07 Syracuse Fairgrounds
119 Attendees - Cost: $1431.00
Mailing was $185.37
Mileage was $200.30
Supplies was $17.82
TOTAL COST: $2407.56
Region IV Chair – Ronni Jones
11/13/07 Hudson Valley Community College
85 Attendees – Cost $856.00
Still needs final postage bill
Region V Chair – Janice Hilbrink
11/9/07 Dominican College
100 Attendees – Cost $839.00
Postage, printing, supplies were $416.21
TOTAL COST: $1255.21
Region VI Chairs – Brian Ghanoo & Lucy Villaquiran
11/16/07 Fashion Institute of Technology
153 Attendees
Name badges: $65.16
Waiting for remaining figures
Region VII Chair – Debra Evans
No information at this time. Workshop was 11/30/07
Region VIII Chairs – Kerry Lubold & Bonnie Evans
No information at this time. Workshops were 12/4/07 & 12/5/07
Thank you for considering me for the Co-Chair position of the Early Awareness Committee. Cathy and Anne are great leaders and I hope to learn much from both of them.
I met with Anne Barton on November 12, 2007 and discussed the plans of the committee. She agreed that the guidance counselors are being supported through the School Outreach Committee and it would not be necessary at this time to send letters/pamphlets/posters.
The Early Awareness Committee felt that the NYS Fair giveaways are a great way to send the message “I’m Going To College” and would like to continue with these giveaways. The pencils, bracelets and ipod drawings brought much traffic to their table.
I will be contacting Ideta Daniels to discuss the electronic initiatives and developing a more extensive web-page for the NYSFAAA Early Awareness page. I had sent some ideas to the committee in early September and will work with the committee to fine tune this page.
Website Recommendations per meeting with Anne Barton
and Cindy Kohlman (EA committee member) :
-Have one “Resource Center” that is in an Excel format so
that a member or visitor can sort it by topic, medium, etc. and find what they
want quickly. Everyone would have access to this center (School
Counselors, FAA, Parents, Students, etc.).
-Each Region could still post presentations, handouts, etc.
from their Region Meeting under their applicable region but could also choose
to include it in the Resource Center if it would be helpful to all. (I
found some helpful information in this area but someone would have really had
to dig to find it if they were not in that Region).
-Website is still not kept current (I am not pointing
fingers here) but I am concerned as it is crucial for a page to be as up to
date as possible. For example, College Goal Sunday’s date for February
2008 was not on the website at our meeting in September (may be it is now) but
we need to get the information out there as soon as things are
set/organized. We were given the date but it wasn’t on the website yet,
why? We can only make this “goal” (no pun intended) if all
members take the responsibility for it.
Here is a
sample of a spreadsheet layout that could be used for the first recommendation
(I guessed on some of the information only to give examples):
RESOURCE CENTER
|
Audience/Age Level |
Title |
Topic |
Ordering Instructions (if applicable) |
Distribution (if applicable) |
Medium |
|
Middle
School |
The Path
to College |
Early
Awareness |
Link
to order |
Mailed to
all New York Middle Schools in November each year |
B |
|
Middle
School |
The Path
to College |
Early
Awareness |
Link
to order |
NONE |
P |
Medium
codes: H=Handout; V=Video; P=Poster; B=Brochure; PP=PowerPoint Slide
Show; PO= Poster; PC=Podcast; O=Other
STATE FAIR COMMITTEE- Karwowski
The New York State Fair is going through a major reorganization of the twelve day event. The representative we work with is unable at this time to work a contract with us. She said she hopes to be able to offer us a contract after the first of the year. She is hopeful because we have so many state agencies involved with Higher Ed Day that they won’t want as many changes with us.
With that in mind, we had an organizational meeting Tuesday December 11th at the state fair grounds. All that participated last year were invited along with those that wanted to join us and were shut out last year. The purpose of the meeting was to judge interest in the event and put together our wish list to present to the State Fair. As of this writing it is safe to say that we have 16 tables that are a definite. Assuming we can get a contract similar to what we have had in the past. They are:
2008 State Fair Tables
Cayuga Community College, Cazenovia College, Crouse School of Nursing,
Bryant and Stratton College, New York State Higher Education Services Corporation, Empire State College, New York State Financial Aid Administrators Association
(2 tables), Finger Lakes Community College, Tompkins Cortland Community College, Excelsior College, Wells College, New York Attorney General’s Office,
Syracuse University(3 tables).
Additionally, SUNY Oswego is seriously considering joining us. Our capacity is 26 tables and I foresee no problem renting them out. As the details get worked out I will keep Council informed.
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE-
Barton
2007-08
Development Committee Members:
Chairperson & Past President: Anne Barton, NSLP
NYSFAAA Treasurer: Tom Dalton, Excelsior College
Upstate Council Rep (Region 1): Lynn Chilson, Buffalo State
Downstate Council Rep (Region 7) Maria DeInnocentiis, Marymount Manhattan
Downstate Vendor Rep Jason Cook, Citibank
Next Generation Committee Rep: TBA
Next Generation Committee Rep: TBA
COLLEGE GOAL SUNDAY-
Harewood/ Storms
What’s New?
Sites in Jamestown and New Rochelle
Tool Box
Marketing and outreach flyers
Donation and thank you letters
Letter head
Migration to high schools
Shirt sizes for volunteers
Confirmation e mails to registrants
Targeting Hispanics (ASPIRA) and Foster Care students
Mailings to students will be sent early January
Two Issues for
Council
Fundraising, how do we proceed?
Need assistance in securing volunteers
NEXT Generation Committee- Constable/Dunn/
Dwire/Kopit/ Patterson-Stanley
Since our last Executive Council meeting the NGC co-chairs have made phone calls to members soliciting volunteers for the various tasks, had one teleconference to discuss the next steps and one in-person meeting.
The NGC was to continue working as a full fledged committee to “inject new blood, ideas etc.” into NYSFAAA. There was even discussion of asking Executive Council (EC) members to allow NGC members to shadow them. The goal would be to have people that could pick up if necessary, understand the “role” of the EC and not have to “re-invent the wheel.” NGC members should be coaxed into working on something no matter how nominal. As stated at the conference even if you volunteer at a booth, table or make some phone calls everything is appreciated and it gives younger members an opportunity to get involved. This concept fell in line with Heather McDonnell’s “donate 5” campaign.
The President and the co-chairs felt it would be good to have in-person meetings with committee chairs such as the Long Range Planning, Professional Standards and Ethics, Novice, Diversity, Membership, Mentoring, and Communications.
Meetings were very amicable and allowed for the committee chairs to share how they could utilize the NGC members and/or how their work is in sync with the NGC findings presented at the last EC meeting. It was also discovered that some NGC members are already a part of several of these committees and could be used as a link.
NYSFAAA committees decided on the following:
· Novice would review the list on members to review who could be used as “small group leader.”
· Long Range Planning would continue utilizing Charles Boland as our direct link as he sits on the committee as well.
· Howard Leslie has opted to mentor.
· Diversity would continue to use Tanya Patterson-Stanley as a direct link as she sits on that committee as well.
· Communications would wait for final word from ATAC as to what updates can be done before working with Steve Dwire, Dan Dunn and other NGC members.
· We were unable to meet with Membership and Mentoring. We must make plans to reach out to these committees in the near future.
After meeting with the various committees the co-chairs convened and decided to send out an email letting members know where we are and giving everyone another opportunity to “volunteer.”
After the 39th NYSFAAA conference the following email was sent out by the co-chairs:
“It has been a while since the co-chairs have communicated with you. Thank you for your patience as we worked with the association to hammer out a few details. The good news is as follows: we are a permanent committee! At this time we will be reporting directly to the President. In the future, as things get more finalized in this time of transition, we will be a sub-committee reporting to the membership committee. We would like to thank Heather McDonnell for her support and leadership in ensuring the survival of our committee and its original vision. We would also like to thank Curt Guame, our new President, for his continued support, as well as all the other leaders in our association that have vocalized their support.
To get all of you up to speed: the co-chairs met with a few committees during the NYSFAAA conference last week. We met with the Novice, Website, and Long Range Planning, and diversity committees to see how we could best carry through the agenda that was determined in the spring by all of us. Each person was very excited to have our support, and they all look forward to working with us.
In order to
move forward, we need a few things from all of you. A response from all of you
is very much appreciated. They are as follows:
1.
Please indicate if you
still wish to be an active member of this committee.
2. If yes to number one, please
indicate which project you would like to participate in: Website, technology
initiatives (webcasts, podcasts, etc.), Mentoring, intermediate training.
3. Please note that you NYSFAAA membership must be current in order to participate.
Once we have responses from all of you. We will move forward in breaking into groups and sinking our teeth in each of these initiatives. Again, we would like to thank you for your patience as we work to get this group running; as well as your willingness to serve NYSFAAA through volunteering.
All the best,”
Next steps:
Update listing of NGC members who wish to volunteer on various tasks: Done
Meet with the Mentoring and Membership Committees: Pending
Establish clear objectives of what is to be done and with whom: Pending
Try to establish a timeline when work will begin: Pending
GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE- Guame
Vote on the Constitution and By-Laws
The proposed amendments to the Constitution and By-laws passed by a vote of 219 Aye’s and 15 Nay’s. The revised Constitution and by-Laws will be posted to the website shortly
Governance Committee
Judi Miladin, Chairperson of the Governance Committee is planning to convene a Spring meeting to discuss “out of the box” issues that could enhance the Association.
Long Range Strategic Planning Committee
The Committee will be meeting next week on December 18th and 19th in Syracuse. Fran Hunter our consultant will have a first draft of the plan for the committee to review next week. Once the committee completes its work next week a draft of the plan will be presented to the regions to receive input from across the state. The goal of the committee is to complete its work on the strategic plan to be presented to Executive Council at the April meeting.
Election of Officers
This spring I will begin the process of electing the officers or the association for the next two years. I will need a person from each region to serve on the Election Committee. I would ask that the regional councilperson provide me with the name of some in their region to serve on the committee by February 15th. Please encourage members in your region to consider running for office.
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS- Sears/Vallee
The Co-Chairs have been
monitoring legislation on the state and federal levels, and posting updates
through NYSFAAA-L. More such updates
will be forthcoming, as the recently released House Reauthorization bill gets
conferenced with the Senate bill from this past July.
Christine and Jim co-presented a legislative advocacy session for a past Region II meeting, and Jim presented a modified version for Region VIII at the end of October. Jim has provided government relations updates at meetings of Regions IV, V, and VIII, Counselor Workshops in Regions II, IV, and V, and a meeting of regional Gear Up school counselors at SUNY Cobleskill.
The annual NYS Legislative Forum has been scheduled for March 3 and 4, 2008. Jim and Christine are on the planning committee for the event, and will be working to develop the financial aid portion of the “talking points” that will be used to bring consistency to the meetings with various legislators. Because the dates were set only last week, it wasn’t possible to schedule the Executive Council meeting to coincide. We will attempt to entice as many Executive Council members, Government Relations Committee members, and general members as possible for the Forum. With the state budget shortfall that is being predicted, we may have a fight on our hands to hold TAP at its present level. If not TAP, other valuable state programs may be threatened.
Christine and Jim will again organize and present the Legislative Training Workshop for legislators and their aids a week-or-so prior to the Forum. This workshop attempts to provide a general understanding of how financial aid works, and to share our views of the importance of NYS programs. It is intended to help prepare the legislators/aids for our visits during the Forum.
Our visit to our Federal Legislators a couple of years ago was successful largely due to members of the Federal Relations Committee of the Tri-State Region (Maryland, D.C., Delaware) because of their experience visiting “the Hill” and their contacts. For various reasons, the leadership of their committee faltered, and two sets of plans to repeat our visit didn’t materialize. There is now new leadership on this committee, and we believe they will be energetic. Jim will once again reach out to see if a joint visit to D.C. will be possible.
SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE- Evans
This year, donations to NYSFAAA designated to be specifically for scholarship totaled $7,775.00.
Income from the sale of tee-shirts and paperweights at the Conference in October totaled $1,010.00. Expense for purchasing the tee-shirts was $965.20 ($832 for the shirts + $133.20 shipping), yielding an income of $44.80. While this was disappointing, the remaining shirts are being held by Vince Scalise until the 2008 conference, where we will once again make them available for purchase.
Scholarships totaling $12,000.00 were awarded to 7 individuals (5 sector scholarships @ $2,000 each and 2 State Fair scholarships @ $1,000 each).
Many thanks to those who worked on the committee this year:
Region 1: Roseanne Johnson, SUNY Buffalo
Region 2: Mark Stoll, Rochester Business Institute
Region 3: Jackie Darquea, Cayuga Community College
Region 4: John Curtice (co-chair), SUNY System Administration
Region 5: Robert Zasso – Dutchess Community College
Region 6: Tania Degen, CUNY Central Administration
Region 7: Crystal Krudis, Adelphi University