State Report from South Carolina

South Carolina State Report

Allison Sullivan, President

SCASFAA – Celebrating 45 Years!!   

Our Annual SCASFAA Conference was held April 1-4, 2012 at the Embassy Suites in North Charleston with a basketball theme ‘SCASFAA - A Full Court Press to Excellence’.               

We had 129 in attendance including 11 vendors and it was a great success due to the hard work of our Conference Committee – we gave away 2 - ½ off Conference Fee prizes if members signed up within a certain time frame which helped increase membership to over 400 members this year which is a big increase from the past few years!

The SCASFAA Conference included sessions from NASFAA trainer Eunice Powell, Federal trainers David Bartnicki and Wood Mason, Greg Peoples from the Office of the Inspector General as well as our SASFAA President Brad Barnett. NASFAA President Justin Draeger gave us a NASFAA/Washington update via Skype!

SCASFAA raised over $2,000 at the conference for our charity The Navy Seals Foundation through our silent auction and raffle of a basketball game.

We awarded the following SCASFAA Awards at the conference:

Emerging Leader Award - Miss Donna Quick

Individuals nominated for the SCASFAA Emerging Leader Award shall be practicing student financial aid professionals who are current members of the South Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and who have made outstanding contributions to SCASFAA through their leadership and/or involvement in the Association and who have been members of SCASFAA for not more than seven years. Currently elected officers of the Association can be nominated for this award.

Achiever Award – Mr. Jeff Dennis

Fearless 9 Award - Mrs. Elizabeth Milam

Distinguished Service Award:

The SCASFAA Board has chosen 2 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award this year:

John Courson, Chair of the Senate Education Committee, and Chair of the subcommittee on higher education (part of the senate finance committee)

Representative Chip Limehouse, 1st vice-chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, and Chair of the W&M subcommittee on higher education.

Both of these legislators have been champions of higher education funding, including merit and need-based aid for students, even during the past few years as other areas have been cut drastically.  They have been instrumental in maintaining funding for student aid in our state.

SCASFAA’s better half award was given to Christy Bartnicki – Federal Trainer David Bartnicki’s wife and the inscription on the crystal plate stated “Behind Every Good Man Is A Great Woman”.

RETIREES:

The Jerseys we will retired at our SCASFAA Conference this year included Bill Whitlock, Toni Cave, Glenn Shumpert, Chris Baker and Arlene Mathis – surprisingly none of them were in attendance at the conference this year I am sure they are busy with other things that retired people do whatever that is maybe gardening, hunting and playing golf J - along with their shirts they received a certificate of appreciation for their excellent service to SCASFAA.

25 YEARS OF SERVICE:

We had one person who has been a member of SCASFAA for 25 years and that was Mr. Keith Reeves. He was awarded a certificate and a 25 year pin. He regretted that he was not able to attend the conference this year and told me that this is only his 2^nd SCASFAA he has ever missed.

SCASFAA gave 2 scholarships to those member institutions that were drawn from the list of those who served and volunteered on committees this year the winners were:

Jennifer Williams – Diversity Committee member – Clemson University $1000 SCASFAA Scholarship goes to a student of their choice.
Allison Sullivan – Diversity Committee member – USC Upstate $1000 SCASFAA Scholarship goes to a student of their choice.

The results of our SCASFAA ELECTIONS for the 2012-2013 year were as follows:

President Elect - Katie Harrison - SC Tuition Grants Commission

Vice President - Missy Lutz - Newberry College

Secretary - Ellen Chiles - Greenville Technical College

Treasurer - Deborah Williams - Piedmont Technical College

Member at Large - Alicia Hugee – USC Aiken

 

Upcoming 2012 SCASFAA events:

Leadership training – rotates between mid-level and upper level – this year SCASFAA will have Director Level training is scheduled for May 31, 2012.

SCASFAA transition Board meeting is planned for June 4^th-5^th, 2012.

Submitted by:
Allison Sullivan
SCASFAA President 2011-2012