Virginia State Report
Tom Morehouse, VASFAA President

It was good seeing the Virginia contingent during the SASFAA Conference! And it was a super conference, not only because of the size, but the content was first rate!

It’s been a busy winter for VASFAA. We’ve completed the decentralized training, high school guidance counselor workshops and one session of support staff training, Our goal was to provide training opportunities around the state at no cost to our members that would serve their needs.

The VASFAA Board held its Winter Board meeting in Richmond January 26-28. It was scheduled over three days so that the board could participate in a visit to the Virginia General Assembly during the Winter Board meeting. We purposefully planned the Winter Board meeting to occur during the GA session and held the Winter Board Meeting in Richmond. The board invited all committee chairs to participate in the day with the GA. Melissa Wyatt, our State Relations Chair, arranged to have VASFAA recognized on the floor of both the House of Delegates and the Senate. Additionally, the Board and some of the folks with us broke into three groups to try to visit as many individual Delegates and Senators as possible, with our final tally of 22 different members or their staffs. Many of them wanted us to set up individual appointments in their home district. When visiting the individual Delegates and Senators, we provided them with a copy of our “vision” statement (it’s posted on our website – www.vasfaa.org). Our contingent also attended the Education subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee hearing and listened to testimony form SCHEV’s Lee Andes on State Financial Aid Programs. All those who participated felt it was a very good effort and will help us in our efforts to promote financial aid and our mission.

Governor Warner proclaimed Feb 11 to March 11th as Financial Aid awareness month. In a ceremony in the Governor’s Office, the Governor recognized VASFAA and its work. Attending the signing ceremony were Awareness Chair, Linda Woodley; State Relations Chair, Melissa Wyatt; Board Member, Pat Kelly; and Board Member John Crowley.

Super Saturday is an annual VASFAA event sponsored by the Awareness Committee. The event is hosted at various sites throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia to assist the college-bound citizens of Virginia in conquering the college financial aid hurdles. This year’s Super Saturday was perhaps the most successful in the history of VASFAA—we had over 500 attendees, with over 200 FASFAs completed. A big thanks goes to Linda Woodley and her committee on their efforts to make this a huge success.

One unique event that the VASFAA Board did was to have a Board meeting during the SASFAA Conference. All the Board members were in attendance at the SASFAA Conference, and as we had some unfinished business from our January Board meeting, it provided a great venue for an in-person meeting. The board approved several changes to the Bylaws to be voted upon at our annual meeting. Most are wording changes to incorporate the Treasurer-Elect position into the Bylaws, but the board did approve one substantive change—rather than have one representative-at-large for each 100 members, we are advocating have four representatives-at-large. In the past three years, we’ve gone from four to five to four to three and back to four representatives-at-large. This will stabilize the membership of the board and promote continuity.

I was invited to attend an announcement by Governor Warner on a new loan program for Teachers and Nurses. In a joint announcement with Sallie Mae and the Sallie Mae Fund, Governor Warner announced that certain teachers and nurses in the Commonwealth could have 10% of their student loan forgiven or returned to them as cash under certain conditions. It’s very apparent from the activism of our Governor and the positive comments that he has received from all corners that he is truly an “education” governor.

A reminder that the annual VASFAA conference will be held on May 22-25 at the brand new Hilton Oceanfront. This conference promises to be a first-rate conference with lots of well-known speakers and a very entertaining Dinner Club on Tuesday. And this year, the Conference officially begins on Sunday with a General Session and our key note speaker, Jean Chatsky, a financial commentator for NBC’s Today Show, as well as the Editor-at-Large of Money Magazine. Watch the web site for announcements!

As I said last time, my thanks to all those dedicated VASFAA members who support both the organization and the profession by the labors and their deeds.

See you at the Beach!!

Tom Morehouse, President
VASFAA