Greetings from the Peach State!
The Georgia folks have been very busy this fall. On October 19, 2011 I was honored to take part in the EASFAA/SASFAA Joint Legislative briefing. I represented the State of Georgia with Tracy Ireland from the Georgia Student Finance Commission. Tracy serves on the GASFAA Board as our State Legislative Relations Chair. Legislative aides from our states were invited to come and meet us and learn about the issues facing the student financial aid community. Bonnie Joerschke, GASFAA’s Federal Legislative Affairs Chair, sent invitations to all of the aides working for Georgia’s Senators and Congressmen. The day started with a casual mixer where we could get to know the aides as well as the other GASFAA representatives. We then had a panel discussion followed by a question and answer session. While in Washington I had the opportunity to meet individually with Georgia aides working for: Senator Saxby Chambliss, Congressman Jack Kingston, District 1, Congressman Rob Woodall, District 7, Congressman John Barrow, District 12, and Congressman David Scott, District 13. Our main topic of discussion was funding the Federal Pell Grant program. I hope that the work we did while in Washington has some impact in the upcoming budget decisions.
GASFAA’s Professional Development Committee hosted the New Aid Officers Workshop at Central Georgia Technical College in October. They used NASFAA’s CORE Training Materials. There were 96 financial aid officers in attendance which far surpassed expectations. On January 31 and February 1 GASFAA’s PDC will host one day workshops on verification and Satisfactory Academic Progress. The verification session will be led by David Bartnicki from the Department of Education and the SAP session will be led by GASFAA’s President-Elect, Philip Hawkins using NASFAA’s SAP training materials. The January 31 session will be held at Central Georgia Technical College in Macon and the February 1 session will be held at Athens Technical College in Athens.
Felicia Ailster and the Diversity Committee took part in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta on October 29. The walk raised over $1 million for the American Cancer Society. Lori Whitaker and the Community Action Committee took part in The Bert Show’s (Atlanta radio station) Big Thank You, an initiative to send handwritten thank you notes to all service members stationed overseas, to be delivered on Thanksgiving Day. Big Thank You collected over half a million letters to send to the troops.
GASFAA’s various committees have been hard at work. Cathy Crawley and the Newsletter Committee put out a great issue of the GASFAA Grapevine. She is also researching the option of moving to a blog format like SASFAA. Patrick Harris and the Electronic Services Committee are working with ATAC to redo the current web page and is looking into other hosting options. Susan Little and the Leadership Development Committee and Jody Darby and the Program Committee have held their first meetings to get things rolling for the May 2012 conference. Pat Barton and the Membership Committee surveyed the membership and are currently analyzing results to find what our membership needs from GASFAA and what will cause them to renew. Treasurer Amy Moser has been looking at electronic payment options for GASFAA membership and conferences. Budget and Finance Chair Gary Mann has kept our CDs up to date and has been working with Edward Jones to ensure that all of our investment paperwork is in order. Vendor Sponsor Coordinator Kimberly Jordan and I have been soliciting sponsorship for ourorganization. Past President Doug Tanner and his committee are seeking qualified people to run for elected office this upcoming year. President Elect Philip Hawkins and his committee have started work on GASFAA’s next strategic plan. I could not be more proud of the Executive Board and the hard work they are doing.
GASFAA is very proud to be selected as the SASFAA 2013 Conference site. President-Elect Hawkins is already planning on how we can help conference chair Paul Mittelhammer make it an amazing 50th Anniversary conference. We hope to see y’all there!
Respectfully submitted by,
Nancy Ferguson
GASFAA President
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