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return to section index Executive Board Meeting Minutes
January 20-21, 2000
In attendance Michelle Alsip, Bill Bushaw, Lori Hall, Janeen Decharinte, Joanna Dill, Kathy Facenta, Mickie Freehill, Theresa Jackson, Deb Kull, Karen LeVeque, Paula Luff, Pam Maciulewicz, James Mendez, Theresa Morgan, Janet Ozuna, Cheryl Warmann, Eric Weems (via telephone) Cheryl called the meeting to order at 2:05 pm. Program and Facilities - Lori Hall and Deb Kull, Michelle Alsip A copy of the annual conference program was distributed. The golf outing will be at the Oaks. The cost for the outing will be $27 per person including a cart. Box lunches will be arranged for participants. People can choose their own foursome or be assigned to one. This event is for all levels of golfers. Registration for the conference will be held from 2-6 on Sunday. Kathy will send e-mails to people who say they want to attend the "Meet Joe Student" session telling them the room. Joanna will present the "Meet Joe Student" session on Sunday so the newcomers won't have to miss other sessions. Joanna will take attendance at the session and have the names given to reception. Someone from the reception committee will then pass out packets to the attendees before the end of the session. Part one of the session will be on Sunday, part 2 will be under "Meet Sally Administrator" on Monday. It was noted that the registration form asks if members will attend the "Meet Joe Student" sessions and that the title may be misleading to members. Therefore, Joanna suggested we change the name to "Newcomer's Training, part 1, part 2, part 3" for next year's conference. The Keynote speaker is Tony Clements, from University of Illinois. Paul Katch will play piano music during the dessert reception. No formal activities are planned for reception. Marsha will plan the agenda for the newcomer's session. Cheryl reminded the board that the current (outgoing) Executive Board is expected to attend the newcomer reception. Bill reminded members that the introduction of the new Executive Board is usually done at the Sunday reception by the past president. Cheryl was not sure of the time of the Executive Board meeting on Sunday, they may need an additional ½ to 1 hour. Deb needs all changes to the program by February 14th. The cash bar will be open from 8-11pm after dinner on Sunday. The committee wants to put the conference agenda on the back of the nametag badges (as was done at the EDE conference). Monday's events will begin with a continental breakfast, including cold cereal. The IPEDS session will be changed to IBHE/IPEDS. IBHE will discuss several items at the session. A customer service session will be offered in two parts on Monday (am and pm). Susan Erikson was hired to present the Professional Ethics/Business Protocol session twice. Mickie Freehill and Nancy Calvert will cover the Title VII Update. The ISAC update is basically for newcomers - Joanna will write the description for this session. This session has been changed to ISAC Loan Electronic Tools. Scheduled 'personal needs' breaks were inserted throughout the conference agenda, Deb will make the appropriate change to the agenda. According to the hotel, Bank of America has a hospitality room on hold from 4-7 on Tuesday evening. Vendors need to be notified that Monday is the date for hospitality/outings, etc. Lori suggested we send a mailing notifying vendors that they can invite people privately, or have an open 'reception.' Hospitality suites won't be mentioned in the program. The hotel requested room locations with the agenda as well as room set up and approximate number of people that will attend each session. Their staff will assist with the logistics of the program. Group broke for short tour of hotel. Deb reviewed the rest of the program for Tuesday and Wednesday. Cheryl reminded the board that although, there won't be any real business at the Tuesday lunch, a 'business meeting' is still required during that time. The committee is hoping for Kay Jacks or Jeff Baker as the Keynote speaker on Wednesday. The Jaycees will run casino night. There will be a raffle for the gifts - people will be able to turn in winnings for raffle tickets. There will be a D-jay that evening as well. Various sponsors will provide some prizes and ILASFAA members will be asked if they want to contribute prizes. Jaycees will distribute play money to those that want to participate. There will be rootbeer floats and popcorn at the dance. There was some discussion about the dress code for the conference, most people felt casual attire is appropriate. Eric stressed the need for very clear description of what casual is. There will be a 'wear your school sweatshirt' night on Sunday to encourage the casual wear theme. Cheryl said that the MAP formula committee wants to present a general session. They would need an hour. Formula committee members and/or ISAC representative would present the session. Therefore, the golf outing is being moved to 9:30 on Sunday and the MAP formula meeting will be on Sunday as well. Dan will write a session description for the MAP formula session. Deb will forward all committee members a revised agenda. (Note: this session was canceled after the board meeting.) There will be a flyer at the Winter Workshop and sent to members re: on line or via mail for the Annual Conference. Lori will give the flyer to Joanna. Both money and registration forms will be sent to Kathy. Michelle will have Bob call Kathy about the on-line process and transferring the data. Kathy and Bob will discuss whether or not the confirmations should be posted on the ILASFAA website. The program will be posted on the website and a message about the conference will be sent to members via e-mail and a flyer. Conference information will also be sent to schools who are not currently ILASFAA members. Bill suggested posting short blurbs (or 'teasers') to get people interested in the program from now until the conference. It was also suggested that we put the ILASFAA link in the e-mail message so people can go right to the site from their e-mail. Registration and Member Support - Kathy Facenda Kathy distributed the draft of the registration form. Janeen suggested that we raise the on-site registration fee to $250-$275 to get people to register early. Kathy will get the names of the newcomers so she can send them a letter inviting them to the Newcomers' Reception. Discussion ensued over whether or not to increase the conference fee and if we should allow one-day registrations and/or individual meals. Lori stated that the food is more expensive at Crowne Point than last year. Lori made the motion to keep the conference fee at the same rate, Bill seconded, and the motion carried. Deb motioned to charge $250 for on-site registration, where upon Cheryl called for discussion of the entire issue. Bill wanted clarification of what that 'on-site' would be defined as. Janeen suggested changing terms to Late/On-site registration. Janeen explained the amount of work needed to keep registration updated and track down people who haven't paid after the conference is over. Bill suggested that we tell people their registration won't be processed until we receive their check. Janeen said that we get at least 75 people who don't pay each year. Eric suggested that we move up the registration deadline 10 days earlier than we need, to allow for those late people. Theresa M. suggested we really spell it out. It was clarified that Registration is complete when ILASFAA receives both a registration form and the registration fee from a member. Cheryl said we should change form to Membership and Conference Application, informing members that registration is only complete when the money is in ILASFAA's hand. After discussion, Janet and Eric seconded the original motion. Kathy wants to get the conference applications on the website with the flyer mailed by early February. In addition she will put a note out information people that there will be a $50 fee if they don't have their money in prior to the conference. The motion was put to the board for a vote, and the original motion to increase the late/on-site registration fee to $250 was passed. The option for one-day registration will not be put on registration application, but will be available if people want it. Janeen wants to know who will police the one-dayers. Cheryl suggested that we have a letter saying that you will be billed the full-rate plus late-fee. The one-day fee will be $85, and will include membership. There will only be two types of registration, full registration or one-day only registration. There will not be two-day registrations. Training Committee Update - Joanna Dill The Leadership Development Retreat nomination draft was passed around, the committee welcomes any comments the board may have. Mailing labels for the committee chairs and the Executive Board are to be sent to Joanna. The retreat will probably be in Allerton on June 7-8, but it might be at Eagleton. Marsha would like the nominees/selected people mentioned sometime during the Conference. Linda Biby asked about sponsoring for this event. Marsha told Joanna that this is a totally ILASFAA sponsored event - to prepare the future leaders of ILASFAA. Bill expressed concern that people don't attend, there was also concern that there aren't enough nominations. 58 people registered for this years Winter Workshop. However, including presenters, helpers, etc. there should be up to 100 or so in attendance. There are three tracks this year, Professional Development, Financial Aid Newcomer and Experienced Veteran. Joanna said Linda Biby can sponsor the Winter Workshop if she would like - Joanna will contact her. The expenses and income for the Fall Seminars and High School Seminars was distributed. Janeen wants to send letters to people that haven't paid, saying that they can't register for any other ILASFAA function until late bills are paid. The materials for the Winter Workshop cost approximately $100 to mail. Joanna will charge $100 to people who want the Workshop materials mailed to them. An upcoming Training Events schedule for 2000 was distributed. There are less sites this year for the FAA seminars. One new site for Chicago FAA seminars is at the Holiday Inn, Mart Plaza. Corporate Support Donna Sobie told Cheryl the due date for vendors was last week. At that time, Donna had only received 10 sponsor registrations. Treasurer's Report - Janeen Decharinte The Cash Flow report and FY report through 6/30/00 were distributed and reviewed. Finance Committee Report The committee met and came up with some procedures for checks and balances - including a policy that all checks over $500 have to have two signatures (the Treasurer's and the President's). All bills need vouchers and all vouchers need signatures. The vouchers must be complete before Janeen can pay the bill. Assets to date after paying bills for the year are approximately $25,400 in checking, $76,155 in Kemper total return fund, and $43,391 in the M-L ready asset trust. These amounts are excess funds. Cheryl discussed the conference call meeting of the Finance Committee (report by Marsha from January 15). At that meeting the surplus fund issue was discussed. ILASFAA has surplus funds each year, the money has been invested over time into the Kemper fund and the ready market fund. There is no fee in the ready market fund as previously thought. Committee recommends that we keep approximately $125,000 in a reserve to allow the association to operate for 2-4 years in case of an emergency of loss of revenue, while the new board determines how to solve the loss. Bill said that the $125,000 is a modest amount and not set in stone. He would like this be a process in which the board sits down and lays out the guidelines for the future and set goals. He also suggests that we continue to plow back into the fund at least the rate of inflation. There was a motion of moving $15,000 by Janeen from checking to the money market account, Mickie Freehill seconded, motion carried. Kathy stated that the Fiscal Year Report needs to include the Directory Expenditures. Janeen will update the report. Paula motioned to accept the report, Bill seconded, motion carried. Bill Bushaw Update The Nominations and Elections Committee had a very good response this year. There were nine open positions this year, and several races were very close. The Northern Regional Coordinator position was tied, therefore, Bill sent out ballots to the Northern Regional voters for the run-off election.
NASFAA leadership conference: ILASFAA can send the president-elect to the conference (this year it will be Kathy Facenda). Marsha would like to send an extra person to the conference -- probably the Treasurer-elect, Bob Clemmons. Motion to send an extra person made by Bill, seconded by Lori Hall, motion carried. Awards The deadline for nominations was January 15. There may be one retiree award, but the person is undecided at this point. Bill would like to have any retiree information by early to mid-February. Site Selection Bill investigated the International Meeting Network (a group that helps associations arrange meetings) and spoke to several people that used this group in the past. Feedback from his sources was positive. There is no cost to the association for their services, and association may drop out (stop using their services) at any time. Bill feels that they would be useful to do the preliminary work, and have us step in before the final decision. Therefore, he signed a working agreement with them. They have come up with 5 properties (see Bill's report). Bill reviewed their report. They did not include the Holiday Inn in Peoria, or the Crown Plaza or Pier Marquette, all under $100 per room. Bill asked for feed back from the group regarding where to have the conference in 2003. Cheryl recalls that some contracts (such as Indian Lakes) require a minimum number of rooms rented. She just wanted to remind him of this. Bill stills need to visit the hotels, once the general location of the conference (either downstate or upstate) is decided. Lori said that we've been down state quite a bit, and she would like to go upstate. Bill will visit various hotels to see what they offer and then report back. Oakbrook Hills was mentioned as another possible option. Bill requested information on the number of complementary rooms that we normally get. For this year's conference ILASFAA received one free room for every 50 rooms rented. Free rooms are normally used for presenters first, then at least one for the President. Vice President, Proprietary Schools - Janet Ozuna Janet has been making a real effort to increase ILASFAA membership among proprietary schools. She has been sending mailings to several schools and contacting them personally to invite them to join. She's also been working on summer MAP allocations (for example, her school got $1000 for the summer due to the proprietary schools awarding), when other schools de-obligate their funds, she would like the proprietary schools to get some or most of these funds. Vice President, Senior Private Colleges - Teresa Jackson As a follow-up to private college meeting last October, the next sector meeting will be in February in Bloomington. Vice President, Nursing and Allied Health - Mickie Freehill Their last Sector meeting was held on November 23rd. A presentation was given by Cathy Casey on an EDE workshop that she attended earlier in the month. There will be another meeting in March to share ideas with each other. Vice President, Senior Public - Marshall Jennings There will be a Sector meeting on February 3-4 at the University of Illinois, Urbana campus. The meeting was adjourned for the evening at 8:20 pm. ***************************************************** Friday - January 21 The meeting was called to order at 8:10 am. FAAM update - Karen LeVeque There are 53 participating sites for FAAM this year. Committee members are acting as liaisons at the sites. Media has been contacted, and they are hoping for a bigger outreach this year. Karen distributed the Site Schedule. Volunteers are still needed in South Chicago sites, an e-mail was sent to ILASFAA members requesting assistance. High schools that are putting the program on themselves especially need assistance. Site packets are being mailed out according to the date of the program. Chicagoland sites also need assistance. Secretary's report - Paula Luff The minutes from the November 8,1999 meeting were reviewed. A motion to approve the minutes as they stand was made by Cheryl and seconded by Theresa Jackson, the motion carried. The current Executive Board List was distributed, any corrections should be e-mailed to Paula. President's Report MASFAA 2001 will be held in Chicago on October 7-10th. Dan Mann will be program chair for the event, Paula will be site chair. As a result, the state association will be more involved this year in the event. The ILASFAA banner didn't work well at MASFAA. MASFAA didn't return the banner in the container that we gave it to them, so the banner is damaged, possibly irreparably. Formula Committee Update - Cheryl Warmann Operations and Formula Committees are doing a great job this year. The Committee report was distributed. There are no changes to rules regarding how we verify Illinois residency for MAP. The Rules committee will meet again on February 14. Formula Committee has been looking at revising MAP formula based on EFC, to replace the current formula. Since the EFC is now calculated differently, using the EFC alone may be fair. No shift among sectors is expected if we use EFC based on various scenarios that were ran. There is some difference between the bottom line EFC and the current MAP formula. In the MAP formula, the student contribution isn't inflated, but it is on the EFC. This would be the largest change if we switch to an EFC MAP method. It would mean that student's with large incomes may lose their MAP eligiblity. Other shifts that may occur are: family with a $50K income w/ 1-2K in student income would win; while families with $30k income with a $10K student income wouldn't get the MAP. An internal ISAC working group will review if using the bottom line EFC would be a good policy for the students, and what would be accomplished by doing this. Another area to be considered is the political feasibility of the change, as well as the operational implications. Moving to a table may change how we project awards, etc. If we move forward, it will move beyond the FA community. ISAC would like FA community to consider the consequences. Shifts are mainly at public institutions rather than private institutions. The request for the shift is coming from FA professionals, not ISAC. The whole EFC concept is to work toward a payment schedule and eliminate the complicated ISAC formula. Janet said the formula was used to help students who were in the past, eliminated from Pell, but are really needy. ISAC wants to review if the goals of the formula are the same as the goals of the Pell. The current MAP formula cannot be moved into a formula table. Therefore, a new philosophy needs to be developed to facilitate a table. Bill asked what complications were, Theresa said there were just too many items to consider. Discussion ensued about the history of the formula and the EFC formula. Bill asked what the ancillary benefits might be - Theresa Morgan and Cheryl think that a higher awareness and understanding of the current formula is one. The Formula Committee will take back a sample table to their shops and bring the results to the committee for review. The Committee may be able to share some of the results after the next meeting on February 17. ISAC Report - Theresa Morgan MAP start-up formula hand out distributed. A cost of living allowance of $4700 is being recommended. Proposed rules and amendments booklet was available for the board regarding Agenda item #10. Summer MAP funding may increase due to reallocation of funds from the less than half-time program. ISAC will also look at regular MAP, it appears there will be additional funds from this program as well. 93 schools are participating in summer MAP, they will receive new letters if they get additional funding. If funds are reallocated, ISAC wants to know if it should it be to more students, or to increase the awards (probably looking at a 1.2M increase). Janeen favors an increased award, while Cheryl voiced the need more students to receive an award -- perhaps a combination of both would work best. Additional schools may be able to sign on for less than half-time MAP awards next year - this is currently being discussed at ISAC. They are waiting for feedback from the first year pilot schools. Janet said the non-traditional, full-time working students are benefiting the most. MAP start-up is on target. MAP on the internet is called MAPNET. ISAC will be sending a mailing to new schools who aren't in the ADP program familiarizing them with notifying students, etc. There will also be on-site training for new schools. Continuing schools will be trained as part of the user-group meetings. Schools will be contacted about the appropriate training. ISAC is working with the governor's office on the Career Scholarship ($1000 non-renewable award for short-term vocational programs). The govenor's office is working on legislation. ISAC is not sure if the program will fly as there is no real indication of how it will be received. If it passes, implementation will be in July of this year. ISAC sees the greatest challenge as getting the word out about the program to high schools and FAs. There will be an application and/or certification process for the program. This is not a need-based program. IT Scholarship also being worked on with IBHE. Currently, they are trying to define what an eligible program is, this is the biggest challenge since schools have the programs all over their curriculum. There is no answer yet as to whether ISAC will follow the feds on the Drug Conviction question (infamous #28). Theresa says ISAC doesn't have the statutory authority to follow them. They are researching whether or not they want to seek the authority. There is also a political environment to consider. Financial Aid reps would like ISAC to follow feds, primarily for ease of delivery. Timeline for budget approval is to be done by the middle of April. The governor would like it to be done by this time. Conversion to National Network is moving forward to move proprietary schools to the network. Most of the schools have responded. The network will be incorporated into StarBase, training will take place in May-June to be ready for July start-up. Diversity Committee Update - James Mendez James passed around the format of the Committee's middle school presentation. The main focus has been early awareness program. The committee spoke to 7-8th grade students and parents about preparing for financing college. The program is set up like one used in Mass. (theirs is 3 days, ours is condensed to one day). James found that the key is the parents. Committee members spoke about types of schools available - reps from each school talked about what is needed to get into their schools and what type of aid is available. Encourage families that they can send their children to school. 75-80 parents/students participated at the school with a total of 120 7-8 graders. The first presentation was in November, a second presentation is planned for March. The committee is learning how to reach families from feedback at the sessions. First tried to work through the TRIO programs, but they focus mainly on high schools, not very helpful. James ended up going to the schools himself and making contacts directly. Some were interested and some were not. One school asked him to come in and present to teachers first, found some resistance among teachers and principals, this is part of the problem of reaching out - they seem to think that their student's are lost causes. The committee would like to continue the program until GEAR UP gets started. For next year, they will do a mass mailing with follow-up phone calls to garner interest in the program. This year schools notified students. Janet suggested that community action leagues may be able to assist in future efforts. The other thing they learned was they definitely needed a Spanish speaking person. James recognized Bill, for starting this initiative in his term. The next Diversity Committee meeting is this Friday. Committee members will assist in the FAAM effort as well, especially Spanish speaking members. There is a great need for bi-lingual FA s. Cheryl wants to add a question about this to the volunteer form. Northern Regional Coordinator - Pam Maciulewicz Pam revealed to the board that she felt she lacked direction as a regional coordinator this year. She would like to see coordinators be utilized more in setting up logistics for their areas for training sessions, not for simply having regional meetings. Pam also feels that we should re-consider having the coordinators sit on both FAAM and Program committee. Bill raised the question: do regional coordinators have a purpose? Pam feels that they can as coordinators of events in their regions - but not to bringing the consensus of their entire region to the board. Currently, coordinators are not being consulted in the decision process. Theresa Jackson says she feels there is a need for regions to be represented, and that the position is necessary. More discussion ensued that the coordinator positions are entry level and training for future ILASFAA positions. Other The next Executive Board meeting is Sunday, April 2 at 3:30 before the conference, additional information will be distributed later. Reminder to board members: bring your Executive board manuals to the conference. Members may also need to bring information for the archives. Meeting was adjourned at 9:50 am. |