Report from MASFAA
Laura Diven-Brown, President

Beginning with a fast-paced and productive Transitional Board Meeting in July at the Golden Moon Resort in Philadelphia, Mississippi, MASFAA 2004-05 has had a successful launch and is anticipating a lively, fun, and interesting year!

The new Executive Board is:

At the Transitional Meeting, participants reviewed individual goals and adopted plans plan for the upcoming year. The organization intends to:

• Enhance relations with the high schools by providing services that are truly seen as value-added
• Offer substantive and fun learning opportunities at training events and the annual conference
• Encourage members to become actively involved in reauthorization issues
• Promote ongoing mentorship, diversity, and leadership activities in order to grow the membership professionally
• Further collaboration with the state financial aid office and the Department of Education
• Strengthen the association administratively by increasing revenue, budgeting wisely, updating Policies & Procedures, and using electronic tools (such as imaging and the web site) to full advantage

Members are planning activities and rolling out new initiatives already.

Conference Chair Wendy Hutchins and members of her committee invited Ron Gambill to provide training in August on site selection. As SASFAA’s resident expert on “Location-Location-Location”, Ron certainly demonstrated why he is the best—the training was very valuable and chock full of practical tips. He assisted participants in reviewing current contracts and provided guidance on future conference sites. The group would definitely recommend a similar event for the other SASFAA states.

MASFAA has set the date for the Fall Training Workshop, featuring NASFAA’s Fall 2004 Workshop Series topic “Student Loan Issues”. Vice President Lori Ball announced that it will be held at the Mississippi State University – Meridian Campus on November 12, 2004. The trainers will be Lynita Davis of Northeast Mississippi Community College and Betty Yeatman of Mississippi State University. They will be heading to Washington later this fall for NASFAA’s “Train the Trainer” Workshop and are looking forward to the opportunity. Since student loan volume has grown so significantly at the Mississippi schools over the last few years, a high turn-out for the workshop is expected.