[Oasfaa] SWASFAA update

Tue Feb 17 11:31:43 CST 2015

With my duties as Oklahoma's Delegate-At-Large to SWASFAA, I want to continue to update the OASFAA membership regarding SWASFAA activities.  I tend to be a little slow in doing it, but I do feel it is important.  Too often, OASFAA and SWASFAA members don't get an opportunity to see just how active and involved your state and regional associations are.  They are more than just their annual conferences!  If you ever want to know more (about either), I'm happy to share!  That being said, your SWASFAA update:

The SWASFAA Board met in Arlington, Texas on January 26th and 27th.  Andrew Hammontree, SWASFAA President, will begin to ramp up his travel schedule very soon.  In March, he will travel to Washington, DC to participate in NASFAA's Advocacy Pipeline and to Portland, Oregon for a NASFAA Board meeting.  In April, he will be at the NMASFAA conference and his favorite conference of all, with his favorite people of all, OASFAA, in Tulsa.  (Don't worry, registration details will come out about that very soon in a separate announcement.)

His goal is to provide an entire series of webinars this year.  The first one will be held Tuesday, February 24th at 10AM on best practices of verification.  A panel of presenters will focus on odd tax filing situations, conflicting information, and how to explain the verification process to parents.  If you are interested in listening in, please email Denise Welch, dwelch at panola.edu<mailto:dwelch at panola.edu>, to register.  This is free to all SWASFAA members.

Mid-Level Training will occur on April 28th, 29th, and 30th in Arlington, Texas.  Topics covered will include Federal Methodology, Verification, Cost of Attendance, Professional Judgment and SAP, Packaging, Direct Loans, and R2T4.  The committee's goal is to be credentialed in each topic.  This will allow the participants to return to their offices with a voucher that enables them to take their own credential tests in these topics free of charge.  Registration is limited to paid SWASFAA members and registration will be $125 per person, with the hotel rate being $109.  Registration should be available very soon, so look out for details on that.  Not only will the materials be presented to prepare the participants to test for the credential, but there will be quite a bit of discussion regarding best practices.  To keep the conversations productive, there will be a cap on enrollment of only 25 attendees.  If you are interested, get registered as soon as you see the registration details become available so you don't miss out.  I am happy to chair this committee, so if you have any questions about it, please don't hesitate to ask.

The Conference and Boot Camp committees will be meeting at the Sandia Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, site of the November conference and boot camp, on March 31st and April 1st.  The Local Arrangements Chair lives in Albuquerque and is very passionate about all the things that her city has to offer.  Our Conference Committee always puts together a solid line up of sessions and speakers, and after listening to all of Joni's ideas for the fun stuff (not to say the financial aid stuff isn't fun, right?), I am very excited about November's activities!

Lisa Hopper, Chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee, will soon be soliciting candidates for President-Elect, Secretary, and the Oklahoma Delegate-At-Large.  My term as Delegate will be ending in December, and it will become someone else's turn on the SWASFAA Board.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my time serving you all on the Board and cannot encourage you enough to consider serving as well.  I would love to share my experiences and opinions, so if you have any questions at all about this position, please don't hesitate to ask me.

The process to investigate venues for the 2016 annual conference and boot camp has begun, and the conference rotation will bring SWASFAA back to Oklahoma!  I have provided the Site Selection chair with a list of several venues to assister her with recommendations to take to the Board.

The Board will meet again in Arlington on April 27th and 28th.

Again, thank you for allowing me to serve, and I look forward to fulfilling my duties this year.  If you have any questions about SWASFAA activities, or questions or concerns I can take to the Board, please do not hesitate to ask.

Mendy Schmerer, M.Ed.
Assistant Director
Office of Student Financial Aid
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
1106 N. Stonewall, Rm 301
Oklahoma City, OK  73117
(405) 271-2118, x 48817 (p)
(405) 271-5446 (f)
Mendy-Schmerer at ouhsc.edu<mailto:Mendy-Schmerer at ouhsc.edu>
http://www.ouhsc.edu/financialservices/SFA/

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