[Oasfaa] FW: [SWASFAA Team Chatter] Verification Webinar and Mid-Level Training

Fri Feb 20 16:05:19 CST 2015

Don't you love it when Andrew posts a new blog??  What a great, and entertaining, way to end the week.  Sorry to hear about your plumbing woes though, Andrew!

I'll have more details about the agenda and registration for our Mid-Level event very, very soon.  I promise!

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  
http://www.ouhsc.edu/financialservices/SFA/  

 Become our fan on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/OUHSCFinancialAid  

-----Original Message-----
From: SWASFAA Team Chatter [mailto:blog at swasfaa.org] 
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 3:12 PM
To: Schmerer, Mendy M. (HSC)
Subject: [SWASFAA Team Chatter] Verification Webinar and Mid-Level Training

SWASFAA Team Chatter has posted a new item, 'Verification Webinar and Mid-Level Training'

I hope everyone is surviving the weather’s bipolar tendencies. Last Saturday I spent most of my afternoon outside, enjoying the warm weather; and on Sunday night I woke up to the sound of rolling thunder (or the second coming of Jesus—it was hard to tell at first). The next morning my neighborhood had turned into an ice-skating rink. I wonder if Mother Nature had a bad Valentine’s Day? I get temperamental, too, whenever I start dating someone.

Speaking of dates, mark your calendars for the Verification Webinar on February 24th and for Mid-Level Training on April 28th-30th. (Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on how ridiculously bad that segue was.) One of my goals for 2015 is to offer training opportunities throughout the year for the SWASFAA members.
Time and money are limited resources for all of us, so we will offer some of the training through webinars. The webinars are free to SWASFAA members. All you have to do is make sure your institution’s membership is current and stay tuned to the SWASFAA listserv (and this blog) for additional information.

The first webinar is next Tuesday, February 24th, at 10:00 a.m. CST. We will focus on verification, i.e., odd tax filing situations, conflicting information, and how to talk to families about the verification process. If you are interested in participating in the webinar and you have not signed up, please contact Denise Welch at dwelch at panola.edu. Yesterday she told me that 90 people had already contacted her about participating, which is pretty exciting … and terrifying if you’re a worrier like I am and wake up in the middle of the night thinking about technical challenges and program reviews and Gainful Employment reporting and the slab leak that cost $2200 to fix, which doesn’t include the cost of patching the six holes the plumbers cut in my walls!!!

Deep breaths. Happy thoughts. It’s going to be okay. I have running water again. That’s worth a lot.

The next training opportunity is Mid-Level Training. Mendy Schmerer wrote a great blog article about this a couple of weeks ago, previewing what you can expect from this event. I won’t rehash everything she wrote, but if you need a refresher, you can scroll back a couple of articles in the blog. We’ll be publishing lots of information about Mid-Level Training in the coming weeks. I want to reiterate what a great opportunity this is for people who want to take their professional development to the next level. The trainers are working to get credentialed so that the participants will qualify to take the NASFAA credential exams for free after the training. Registration will be $125, but this will quickly pay for itself if you take more than two credential exams, which are normally $99 apiece. The more exams you take, the more you save. (And really, can you put a price on this kind of knowledge? Hahaha! I know…) Seriously, it was important to the board that we keep the registration cost as low as possible because we know schools have limited budgets. All the registration proceeds will go toward the administrative expenses of putting on the event. The training will be held in Arlington, TX, near the DFW airport. By offering the training in a central location, we hope to keep travel costs at a minimum. As soon as registration goes live, we will post the details on the SWASFAA listserv.

We have lots more planned in the months to come, and we’ll be using this blog (and the listserv) to let you know what’s in store. In the meantime, make sure your institution’s membership is current so you’ll be eligible to participate in all the training events for the year. The mission of SWASFAA is to enhance the professional development of the financial aid administrator, and the board takes this very seriously—but no one said we can’t have fun while doing it. I hope you’ll find a lot of value in your SWASFAA membership. The relationships you build with your colleagues are friendships that will last a lifetime. And believe me, you’ll need these friends at some point, even if it’s just to complain about the outrageous cost of plumbers.  (Don't get me
started!)

You may view the latest post at
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