NJASFAA Executive Council 09 14 12
Meeting Minutes
Seton Hall University- South Orange
In attendance:
Karen Sokol, Doug Wilson, Pat Guli, Lucy Candal-Fernandez, Cynthia Montalvo, Sharon Austin, Tammi Hussey, Mike Livio, Larry
Sharp, Gedalya Green, Gabrielle Charette, Pearl McMillan, Mark Singer, Pilar Sanchez, Cathi Boscher-Murphy, Will Casine, Ed
Gonzalez , Grace Giglio
Absent:
Stacy Salinas, Christine Peterson, Jim Anderson, Maribeth Quinn, Kathy Prieto, Gisele Joachim, Fran Andrea.
The meeting was called to order at 9:42 am.
President – Karen Sokol
Karen announced the birth of Stacy Salinas’s baby girl, Angelina in early August. Mommy and baby are doing well.
Karen also mentioned she emailed the List Serve on 08/28 with a brief NJASFAA update including information on the Conference and
a reminder to complete the absentee ballot. The email also included information on Novice and College Goal Sunday. Karen forgot
to mention the NJASFAA scholarship but Mike Livio will include this information with the next Quarterly Update.
Quarterly Update Schedule:
Mike LivioOctober
Tammi Hussey- November
Sharon Austin- January/February
Jim Anderson- March/April
Karen attended the NASFAA conference in Chicago in July including a meeting for the presidents of all associations. One of the
topics discussed at the presidents meeting was NASFAA University, a self paced modular training for student financial aid
administrators. The training cost is $99 and completion of the program results in an actual credential/certificate. The training may
be something to consider for Novice in the future. It does not seem likely it would be ready to implement at this year’s Novice. Also
discussed was the investment opportunity thru NASFAA for state and regional associations. Karen has previously mentioned this
opportunity as part of an EASFAA update. There is a minimum investment of $150K and is not feasible for NJASFAA at this time.
Note, the next executive council meeting will be held at Raritan Valley Community College and the correct date for the May meeting
is May 3rd.
Past-President –Stacy Salinas
No report
President Elect – Doug Wilson
No report
Vice President – Pat Guli
The consensus from the majority of the committee members is to reinvest the CD referenced below which Paul Murray (MorganStanley) indicated in August had been called in early:
BANK OF AMERICA NA CHARLOTTE NC - FID
CUSIP 06051VTS5
The Finance Committee agreed that we would like to reinvest the proceeds from the above referenced CD in another CD that
matures in February or March 2015, as suggested.
Secretary – Cynthia Montalvo
On August 11th and September 13th the NJASFAA Minutes from July were emailed to Executive Council with a request to review the
minutes and submit any corrections or updates that may have been missed. Minor changes were made.
Motion to accept Secretary’s Minutes: Doug
Second: Lucy
The Motion passed unanimously.
Treasurer – Lucy Candal-Fernandez
Lucy distributed reports, Detail Transaction Report, Budget vs. Actuals and the Balance Sheet.
NJASFAA had a CD that was called in early in August and the decision was made to reinvest the principal in another CD to mature in
March 2015. This maintains the Association's laddered approach to investment. The Finance Committee will be meeting after the
Exec Council meeting tomorrow to go over where we stand in relation to total investments and preparing a report for the Exec
Council.
Motion to accept Treasurer’s Report: Sharon
Second: Tammi
The motion passed unanimously.
HESAA Update – Gabrielle Charette
HESAA Update
I.
Grants System - I know some of you have had difficulty with the Grants system, e.g. speed, shutting down, etc. HESAA
has scheduled rebooting of the Jacada server on a weekly basis. We understand your frustration and we recognize this
is a problem. While the reboot is a temporary solution, we have done the following in an effort to secure a permanent
solution:
System was purchased in 1981.
a) We are issuing a Request for Information (RFI) for a new web based grants system. We intend to gather as much
information as possible from the RFI about the latest state-of-the-art services now available to be able then to craft a Request for
Proposals for the purchase of a new grant system.
b) I have requested consideration of a one-time state appropriation for the purchase of such a system. As you know,
HESAA no longer receives any operating aid from the state and as you can imagine there are significant personnel, IT, postage and
other costs incurred in running the grants and scholarship programs. I don't know if this request will ultimately be granted, but I
thought I had an obligation to at least make the pitch.
c) In the interim- with the current system we have- we are also working on moving some discreet functions to the web. I
will allow Pilar to discuss further as I know she is working on a possible presentation for the fall conference.
II.
Review Records - On Wednesday you all should have received a memo from Ken Jones, Director of Grants and Scholarships.
Pilar and Magda have created what we are calling an "R" records file. These are students who have submitted all requested
information and are simply awaiting review. This file will allow you to see what students you need to follow up with to make sure
they get whatever information is needed to us and those you can rest assured have done what they are suppose to do and are just
awaiting HESAA review. If you want this customized report you can contact Pilar.
III.
Backlog - Also in Ken's memo he alerted you to the fact that we are about five weeks behind on processing the Long Airs,
Audits and Re-evaluations as a result of high processing volume, student's confusion regarding tax return transcripts and delays in
getting the tax return transcripts. We are extending the hours of one part time employee and hiring another full time employee and
another part time employee to address the immediate issue.
IV.
Governor's Urban Scholarship (GUS) - There was a fair amount of recoding that had to occur on HESAA's end because
there were a number of criteria that applied to GUS students that had not applied to the students awarded under the prior
Distinguished/Urban scholar programs, e.g. FAFSA completion, NJEI. You should have received a list via email from Carol Muka
listing those GUS recipients at your institutions. We are working on getting them on the applicant roster that should be
accomplished in short order and then they will be on all subsequent rosters.
V.
H.S. Guidance Counselor Institute/Workshops - There are eight sessions scheduled throughout the state between October
16 - November 20, as you saw in the NJASFAA email announcement. We are looking for speakers to present; there is a speaking fee
of $175 plus mileage at the state reimbursement rate ($.31). As you know, Client Services has had some attrition and we are looking
for speakers for financial aid nights and other presentations as well. So if you are interested, please contact Andre Maglione.
VI.
College Access Challenge Grant - We are waiting to hear if we are going to be receiving these funds again this year and if
we are we will then be reaching out to your institutions to participate in the FAFSA completion training sessions.
VII.
Dana Christmas Heroism Scholarship - PSEG has agreed to fund this program again this year. Applications/nomination
forms are on the HESAA website.
Grad Professional NJ Class funds are no longer available.
Karen- we would like to market the guidance counselor workshops on the new NJASFAA Financial Aid Navigator. The brochures
marketing the Navigator are pending. Training for the workshop presenters is Sept 27th at HESAA. Qualified presenters will be paid
$175. There is a need for presenters at this time as there have been some attrition issues over the years.
EASFAA Update – Karen Sokol
EASFAA is marketing their Social Media and Mentoring Relationships webinar on 10/15. EASFAA encouraged members to sign up
participate in the webinar as a group. EASFAA even offered to help cover some cost of light refreshments for the group. The next
EASFAA meeting will be at Rochester on 09/30.
Committee Reports
Awards & Recognition – Catherine Boscher-Murphy
College Goal Sunday – Sharon Austin and Grace Giglio
Sharon mentioned she has received site confirmation from 9 of the sites, except Rutgers. NJIT will have a different CGS date again
this year, February 17th & February 24th and a snow date of March 3rd. The CGS forum is coming up at the end of the month. Sharon
is going to USA funds sponsored forum, as USA funds is the formal administrator of the grant. Sharon will be meeting with the other
40 state representatives to learn how to apply for the grant and to figure out how much we can actually apply for this year. After
this forum, Grace and Sharon will meet and begin detailed planning for the event. The CGS/USA meeting will be held in Indianapolis.
The CGS Committee meeting will be held on 10/4th.
Conference –Cynthia Montalvo and Gisele Joachim
The Conference Committee will be meeting on the 20th of this month to nail down the Fall program and assign individual task to the
committee members. Currently, we have solid commitments from the following committee members: Shalini Patel from Felician
College, Danielle Barbee from Rutgers, Erin Kislan from Raritan Comm. College and Ed Hill from PNC as well as Ed Gonzalez who has
also agreed to ‘officially’ join the conference committee, outside of his vending responsibilities. We may ask additional people to
join conference as some members who committed earlier have since changed their mind.
We are excited to report we have confirmation of participation from Annemarie Weismann and Bob Berry from the Department of
Ed, Megan McClean from NASFAA, Gabrielle Charette from HESAA, Wynette Richards from EASFAA, and Dr. Prisco President of
Felician College.
We have also received a number of session proposals from members of the College Board, American Student Assistance, Sallie Mae,
HESAA, and Lincoln Tech and are pleased with the overall Fall program thus far.
We will also work with Will and the Mentoring Committee to include the registration discount we spoke of earlier to entice Directors
to send nominated mentees to the Fall conference. We are hopeful this discount will allow at least 20 projected mentees to take
part of the built in Leadership Track.
As a reminder, registration fee for the Fall Conference will be:
$325 for the 3 Day
$175 for the 1 Day
$ 65 a night for the Hotel (which includes the $55 room rate, plus a $10.00, non taxable resort fee.
We are also very excited about the scheduled events thus far:
The Conference Committee has secured the Fin, a seaside restaurant for our Monday night Presidents Reception and a
dessert/dance reception at the Boogie Night’s Club, a 70 & 80’s theme night club where we will proceed to after dinner at the grand
ball room. We have confirmed there will plenty of TV’s available for the Presidential Election coverage on Tuesday.
I will be working closely with Larry to post conference registration by 09/27 th and will be sure to send out standard email reminders
to our membership thereafter.
Conference Membership Outreach thus far includes:
07/23- Email from Conference Committee regarding ‘Save the Date’ along with new NJASFAA ‘Conference’ link and Absentee Ballot
link.
08/16- Email from Conference Committee regarding ‘Session Proposals’ along with a reminder to check out our conference site and
complete Absentee Ballots.
08/28- Email from Karen Sokol regarding NJASFAA updates, along with a Save the Date notice, Session Proposal reminder, and
Absentee Ballot link and notification that there will be election coverage available at the Tuesday night party.
Constitution & Bylaws – Fran Andrea
Absent. No report given.
Development – Ed Gonzalez
Ed contacted all vendors regarding conference sponsorship on 08/31. Vendor sponsor portal will be up and running next week for
fall conference sponsorship opportunities. The Sponsor Fee for conference is $500.00. An extra 150 ‘vendor giveaways’ was
secured to share with the Training Committee to supplement the ‘training giveaways’ throughout the year. As previously agreed, we
took away the ‘free’ vending for Spring conference for those that sponsored in the fall conference. The reason we did this is to
secure stronger commitments from the vendors for the Spring conference. We needed better controls in place to plan for the Spring
vending. A possible vending fee for spring will be $50-$100. Last year we secured 17 vendors at $500 for the Fall 2011 conference.
15 out of 17 said they would vend in Spring, however two extra vendors showed up at Spring and it was hard to manage the last
minute details and overall a clunky process.
Karen asked do we know how much NY is charging vendors?
Ed said vendors pay $750 in NY and over $1000 in PA. Ed also gave a brief history of vending over the years as it relates to location
(NY vs. NJ) and cost. NJ has always charged lower vending cost.
Cathi confirmed, based on the June ‘Retreat Minutes’ vending projected 15 vendors @ $500 for Fall and 15 vendors @ $50 for Spring
Conference.
Larry asked have we ever discussed possible sponsorship from vendors for the NJASFAA navigator.
Ed replied we first need to see the product and its user frequency before securing sponsorship opportunities.
Electronic Initiatives – Larry Sharp
The vendor registration site is complete and will be live when the regular conference registration goes live.
Conference registration is ready to be tested. Cynthia will be providing me today the list of items that are needed to complete the
forms. We are also adding a College Goal Sunday volunteer section to this year’s registration. We may be able to do online check in
for conference registration.
We will be meeting after this meeting to go over some details and on-line check in.
The navigator is up and running. We are meeting this afternoon to discuss ways to market and use the site. I have compiled a list of
guidance counselor names and email addresses that we can use to promote the navigator site. Will be adding a ‘to and from’ date
range as well.
I sent all of you a link to the NYSFAAA website to get your feedback on the layout and look. However, no one on executive council
received it. NYSFAAA had a makeover and we would like to start thinking about a makeover for NJASFAA’s site.
We should be getting our Blog shortly.
The job requests have been up in the last quarter which also include out of state positions.
I need to remind everyone that chairs and exec council members need to upload meeting minutes to the website. All meetings
should be placed on the calendar as well.
ATAC has been a little slower in responding to our request/questions and this issue has been addressed and as a result we have seen
some improvements in response time since then.
There was a brief discussion regarding the online check in functionality at conference. The logistics of this process will need to be
further discussed by the conference committee. Cynthia will follow up with prior registration group, get some feedback and discuss
possible solutions.
Finance – Pat Guli
The consensus from the majority of the committee members is to reinvest the CD referenced below which Paul Murray (MorganStanley) indicated in August had been called in early:
BANK OF AMERICA NA CHARLOTTE NC - FID
CUSIP 06051VTS5
The Finance Committee agreed that we would like to reinvest the proceeds from the above referenced CD in another CD that
matures in February or March 2015, as suggested.
Government Relations – Jim Anderson and Gedalya Green
There is a meeting scheduled for 9/13. Hopefully, the Newsletter will be developed and distributed by 10/1.
Membership – Evelynne Blatt
Evelynne was absent but sent a text indicating she was essentially working on inactive institutions and duplicate members.
Mentoring –Wil Casaine
- Drafted letter to Directors, anticipate e-mailing it early October.
- Committee will compile results, make calls if necessary, and match mentors with mentees prior to the end of October.
- Would like to sponsor a ‘Meet and Greet’ at fall conference between mentors and mentees.
-Implement two links on the NJASFAA site, one for mentee and one for mentors- to provide more information about the overall
program.
Multi-Cultural – Pearl McMillian
Pearl is still working on a possible cultural diversity session for the fall conference. Below are the options at this time:
Plan A:
I spoke to the Diversity Coach/Writer and she was going to send me a copy of her bio. She said her normal fee per engagement is
$1500, she was going to reduce that to $250, but needed to check her upcoming schedule with her agent. Upon receiving her new
schedule, she is scheduled to be out of the state during our fall conference week.
She was going to send me a listing of possible presenters/contacts. I am still waiting for the list. Unfortunately, her schedule did not
allow her to commit.
Plan B:
I left a message with my previous boss, Bandele Addison who is currently a practicing psychologist, but was a Financial Aid Director,
to see if she can present. I am currently waiting for a returned phone call. Update: Bandele is willing to present if she can be
scheduled for Tuesday, Election Day.
NJACSA- Mark Singer
Meeting held July 13. Ken Jones gave a presentation on NJ Stars, with some minor changes to the program. Ken also mentioned the
changes to marital status. The State is now accepting these changes with proper documentation. Guidance counselor workshops
information was also provided.
Nominations & Elections – Stacy Salinas
No Report- Absent
Non-Traditional – Christine Peterson
Grace in Christine behalf:
Christine emailed all members and below are the following Non Traditional Meetings for the year:
Jan 29
Oct 2
March 19
May 21
Fall & Spring conferences
Novice Training- Maribeth Quinn
Novice Training this year will be the week before Memorial Day at the Engleside Inn in LBI and will be $102 a night, at this cost it
should all work out as projected.
Public Relations & Speakers Bureau- Kathy Prieto
(Absent- update provided by email to Cynthia Montalvo)
Kathy will work on NJASFAA’s Financial Aid Navigator brochure to be mailed to High School guidance counselors this weekend and
send Karen a draft by Monday so she can review it and make any changes.
Scholarship – Mike Livio
Nothing new to report.
Training – Tammy Hussey and Pilar Sanchez
We have a training committee meeting tomorrow at 1:30pm at Seton Hall, not much to report other than we have 11 people who
have confirmed their participation in our committee and we have 3 people who have confirmed their attendance to our first
meeting. Our agenda for our first meeting includes developing a calendar of 2012-13 training events, along with all the details each
training event entails.
Cynthia asked how the HESAA session titled, ‘Stare and Compare’ was received at the Spring Conference as she wanted to consider
doing a part II to this training at the Fall 2012 conference. Pilar and Sharon mentioned that it was well received and in fact a few
people continued the training on an individual basis after the session. Pilar mentioned Magda’s macro presentations, zip file with all
macros was on E-Administrator, under tutorials and the file name is 123.
There were brief discussions regarding HESAA processing and administrative functionality and how to better serve inquiries
regarding outstanding documentation and status of grants:
Cathi mentioned it was quite frustrating for aid administrators to not have the ability to view what was outstanding for an applicant
on HESAA. She mentioned some staff at Montclair calls HESAA directly throughout the day to assist students in finding out their
latest TAG status.
Pilar had planned on offering some ‘Training Tips’ for everyone as a HESAA refresher. She will explore all options and opportunities
and share with the group. Pilar may even offer a session at the Fall conference on such topics. She also mentioned she has seen a
demonstration of how HESAA’s student portal could work and this may solve some of the issues being discussed.
Wil mentioned possibly bringing back the ‘New Beginnings’ trainings or HESAA Novice trainings to review topics like how to read a
roster, how to read stats. He mentioned it was typically held around January for all the new people in NJ.
Sharon & Pilar will review and explore bringing such training back and will get back to the group.
Wil mentioned maybe try revising the Newsletter previously sent as well.
Cynthia requested information on why HESAA required the IRS Tax Transcript when an applicant and/or applicant’s parent used the
IRS Data Retrieval. Could HESAA collect a Tax Return and schedules instead, in these particular cases? Pilar responded that HESAA
wanted to follow what the majority of schools were doing but would keep this in mind for next year.
Old Business
Karen mentioned Fran still needed to work on a proposal to address how much retirees should actually pay for conference.
Karen also mentioned Fran and Cathi still needed to work on the language for setting term limits for members at large.
New Business
No new business
Motion to adjourn: 11:40
Tammi
Second: Pat
The motion was unanimously approved.
Submitted by: Cynthia Montalvo
NJASFAA Secretary 2012-2013