The Diversity Committee developed and conducted a Diversity Survey this winter. Results of the survey will be utilized to develop future sessions, workshops and speakers. This committee also conducted the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium as a pre-conference activity to the annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia in February. Session topics for the symposium included: "Maslow Meets Multiculturalism", "More Than a Survivor-Thriving n Today’s Diverse Financial Aid Office" and "Extreme Makeover-Office Edition".

The SASFAA Long-Range Plan was reviewed and a draft was presented to the board at the February board meeting. The committee suggested conducting a retreat during the fall of 2005 in order to review, plan, update and analyze the results of the membership survey which was conducted in the spring. The outcome of this retreat will assist the committee in finalizing the LRP for 2006-2011.

The annual conference was held in February in Atlanta, Georgia at the Hyatt Regency. Though this is an annual event for SASFAA, this year’s conference was the celebration of many successes and challenges. By far, this was the most expensive conference due to the high cost of all services and meals and items in conjunction with the hotel. But, even though the costs were high, our income levels were also very high as we had record attendance and registrants of over 1000 for the first time in our history. In addition, record sponsor/vendor participation in the exhibit area was experienced during the conference. Also, in lieu of gifts for the board, speakers and guests as is tradition, the monies were donated to the conference charity in order to supplement the monies donated by participants. This brought our charity donation to almost $6300.

The Nominations and Elections Committee successfully conducted its first electronic voting at the conference. They presented proposed revisions to the Policy and Procedures Manual for electronic voting and with the assistance from the Electronic Services, Membership, and the Board of Directors this endeavor was extremely successful.