Minutes of the Committee on Financial Aid to Students
December 10, 2013
Student Services Building, G1.106
The December regular meeting of the Committee on Financial Aid to Students, for the academic
year 2013-14, was held on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, Student Services Building, G1.106, at
11:00 a.m.
Committee Members in attendance were Joseph Glenn Brouillard, Jaden O. Felix, Lisa Griffin,
Janet L. Griffith, Marvin L. Hackert, Ann C. Johns, Thomas G. Melecki, Linda E. Reichl, Circe
D. Sturm, Courtney Sy, Chance Lee Vaughan, and Kurt Weyland. Guests in attendance were
David Laude, Vice Provost, Diane Todd Sprague and Miguel Wasielewski, Office of Student
Financial Services (OSFS). Michael G. Findley sent a note, prior to the meeting, that he was out
of town on business and would not be able to attend.
Vice Chair Circe Sturm called the meeting to order explaining that Chair Victor Saenz was
unable to attend due to a last minute conflict.
Minutes from the November 5, 2013 meeting were approved, without revision.
Business – The committee needs to set a meeting day/time for the coming spring 2014 long
semester. A Doodle Poll was sent out in November asking members for their availability in
spring 2014. Dr. Sturm said that she could not attend meetings, if the current Doodle Poll
winning day/time was chosen. Some members said they didn’t think they received the poll. Dr.
Sturm asked OSFS to resend the doodle poll. The committee will set a regular meeting time, for
future meetings, at the January 2014 meeting. The first meeting of the spring semester will be
January 16, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Guest Dr. Laude was invited to start the discussion.
Discussions with Dr. Laude
• Committee's Role
• Dr. Laude began by asking the committee what it felt its role should be, and said he
believes there should be a recurring relationship between the committee and OSFS.
• Committee members identified three operational functions -- advising, hearing appeals,
selecting students for scholarships.
• Dr. Sturm indicated that communication between OSFS and committee is very good, but
that it does not feel as well-positioned to have input on issues that are bigger than OSFS.
• Dr. Laude indicated an interest in having a better structure for making decisions about how
to utilize $100 million in discretionary financial aid administered by OSFS. Would or
could this committee play a role in this?
• Dr. Reichl said she thinks it would be great to have faculty input. While faculty may
lack expertise, they are close to students.
• Dr. Sturm indicated she does not want the committee to be consulted unless its input
would be taken seriously and that the committee has historically been advisory and not
operational. The committee could become more operational but it would need to be
negotiated. Dr. Laude agreed.
• Dr. Laude indicated interest in looking at how financial aid should be spent over a 5year period. He said that there is an effort to distribute the responsibility on distributing
scholarship funds to the colleges and schools to aid them in managing their students.
Diane Todd Sprague suggested we use spring to get the committee up to speed so it can
offer advice on this topic, next fall.
• Dr. Laude said decisions about PAS awards have now been "trickled out" into the
colleges.
• Dr. Reichl suggested that departments would not want the administration to tell
them how to use their scholarship dollars. Dr. Laude replied that he understood that
notion and that he would not want to do that.
• Eight Consecutive Semester Limit on Discretionary Gift Aid
• Dr. Laude made reference to increased student debt for students who take longer to secure
their degrees, then asked me to review OSFS's current practices in limiting discretionary
gift aid.
• Dr. Melecki reviewed OSFS's practice of generally limiting such aid to 130 credit hours
and shared data showing that, for our two biggest discretionary accounts, less than 3% of
the funds disbursed go to less than 3% of the fall 2013 aid recipients.
• Dr. Sturm suggested that the numbers of students receiving such aid after 8 consecutive
long semester are quite small, and that a communications campaign about the costs of extra
time in the university might be a better idea. Dr. Laude replied that he, too, is interested in
a communications campaign.
• Dr. Laude asked how the committee feels about "buying" students departure from the
university. He said Texas A&M does this. He added that he might have as much as $10
million to spend on this.
• Dr. Reichl replied that other institutions who do this probably have more money than
UT, which is broke. She also suggested there could be problems with public relations,
especially with staff who are being laid off if we do this.
• Dr. Griffin suggested the real problem is that students cannot get the courses they need
to graduate in 4 years.
• Chance Vaughan (student representative) said that this would not give him incentive to
want to graduate in four years. He already has enough incentive. The problem is that
there are processes in place at the university that prohibit him from graduating in four
years. He said that we should concentrate on giving students access to the courses they
need to graduate.
• Dr. Griffin said that extra money should be used to open more classes.
• Dashboard
• Dr. Sturm asked how the committee could have some input on the dashboard. Dr. Laude
replied that reality is reality, and the reality is that the dashboard is an effective tool for
telling us who are the better students (the right students) that we should bring here. Dr.
Sturm raised a concern about class bias. Dr. Laude replied that class is associated with
success at UT. He added that he is using incentive-based financial aid help get students
with highest percentage of 4-year graduation probability.
• Dr. Reichl observed that, while top 10% rule brought in underprepared students, after two
years they were doing as well as others. Dr. Laude attributed this to the university's student
success programs.
• Dr. Griffin noted that there was a dashboard meeting on campus next week. Dr. Melecki
said that meeting was about how to use the dashboard.
• Next Steps
• Dr. Sturm asked what the committee wants and that she and Dr. Saenz would discuss it
when they debrief next week.
• Dr. Hackert suggested the committee should definitely accept the invitation to offer
input on policies.
• Chance Vaughn suggested the students may need help in getting up to speed on the
subject matter before the committee, and that the committee also needs to ensure that
its meetings are more accessible to student representatives. Dr. Sturm offered to redo
the doodle poll.
• Dr. Sturm said that perhaps staggering student members’ terms would help the student
knowledge base. She then asked if she and Dr. Saenz should advise the chair of faculty
council that the committee has concerns about the dashboard. Dr. Hackert said he has
concerns, but he is not sure of all the issues and does not have data to support his
concerns. Dr. Griffin said yes.
Dr. Sturm adjourned the meeting at 12:20 p.m.