Memorandum
From:
To:
CC:
Date:
Jackie Balzer, VPEMSA; Cindy Skaruppa, AVPEM
Academic Leadership Team
Sona Andrews, Provost
February 8, 2016
Regarding: Centralization of scholarship processing
Historically the scholarship process at PSU has been discouraging and difficult for our
students to manage. There are myriad of offices offering scholarships, each with their own
deadline, award amount, and application process. In some cases this has resulted in
scholarship committees not receiving a robust applicant pool, and in many cases deserving
students have missed out on needed funding opportunities. Additionally, lacking a central
office and process to monitor funds, various scholarships have not been awarded for years
at a time degrading the donor’s intent and goodwill to the University.
To improve the overall quality of scholarships as we embark on the $50M campaign, we
need to do everything in our power to ensure that our limited scholarship resources are
being used strategically to recruit and retain high quality students. Pursuant to these goals,
the Office of Student Financial Aid & Scholarships (OSFA) will be taking an increased role in
the centralized processing of all on-campus scholarships which encompasses, undergraduate, graduate and University Wide.
This proposal has been verbalized with several deans and vetted through multiple venues
such as the Academic Leadership Team, ExCom, Advancement, Office of Graduate Studies,
among others.
2012-13 changes to effect 2013-14 financial aid and scholarship awards



All schools/colleges/departments will advertise their scholarships with OSFA (in
addition to any departmental advertising they may be performing). Send materials
to scholarships@pdx.edu as soon as possible and before October 31st.
All departments will adhere to the University timeline for scholarship
advertisement, awarding and disbursement (see attached schedule). If a department
offering an undergraduate scholarship has not communicated decisions by March
2nd, OSFA will have authority to select scholarship recipients from the application
pool.
Students will accept all scholarship awards online through their student account.
OSFA will administer.
2013-14 changes to effect 2014-15 financial aid and scholarship awards

All departments will utilize our centralized Scholarship Manager online software for
student scholarship applications, review, and selection.

Central communication mechanisms will be established to notify students if they
have or have not been selected for any institutional scholarship.
The intent of these improvements is to create a simple and transparent scholarship process
for our students which will undoubtedly also result in a higher quality applicant pool. The
establishment of a University wide award decision date of March 1st (for undergraduate
scholarships) and May 1st (graduate and/or in conjunction with the Office of Graduate
Studies) will allow scholarships to be included on the initial award packages sent to
students, thus providing incoming and continuing students with a holistic picture of their
finances for the following year. In times of high financial uncertainty, this is crucial to the
University’s enrollment management plan. A single central entity will be best able to
monitor the funds to make sure that students are paid in a timely and accurate manner.
These changes will also better equip the University to honor donors’ generosity and provide
leverage to ask for continued or increased support.
If you have questions, please contact Phillip W.W.D. Rodgers, Sr., Director of Student
Financial Aid & Scholarships at prodgers@pdx.edu. Phillip may also contact you and/or
your staff in the future should additional information be required. Lastly, we are committed
to the continued improvement and streamline of this iterative process. With this, please
provide your feedback and suggestions for future changes and improves service to our
students.