At this year's Annual Conference in Orlando, FL, NASFAA conferred numerous awards on financial aid administrators and others for recognizable accomplishments and service. NASFAA salutes each of the award recipients for his or her contributions and accomplishments. A list of recipients appears first, followed by details on each award.

A listing of previous recipients for each award is available on-line.

Associate Lifetime Membership
Jill Martin

Distinguished Service Award
Sarah Ann Candon
Michael Bennett

Regional Awards
Service to Colleagues or Constituencies: RMASFAA and SASFAA

Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award
Dr. Bridget Terry Long

NASFAA State and Regional Leadership Awards
EASFAA: Susan Howard
MASFAA: Daniel R. Mann
RMASFAA: Janet Dodson
SASFAA: Betty Whalen
SWASFAA: Elaine Rivera
WASFAA: Doug Severs

State Awards
Service to the Financial Aid Profession: Wisconsin
For Service to Advance Access and Diversity: North Carolina

NASFAA Committees of the Year
Research Committee
Student Access and Diversity Committee

NASFAA's Associate Lifetime Membership Award is presented to Jill Martin for her unselfish and dedicated support of her husband, to NASFAA and the financial aid profession.

The Distinguished Service Award is presented for outstanding achievements in the furtherance of NASFAA goals, and for significant contributions over a sustained period of time.

Sarah Ann Candon served as Treasurer of the Association from 1987 to 2008. She has consistently represented NASFAA as a dignified professional who has unselfishly labored to improve the financial stability, internal controls, and investment policies of the Association, and has still given of her time to help her colleagues preserve a balanced set of aid programs to serve America's needy students.

Michael Bennett served as the 2007-08 NASFAA Chair. His able and enthusiastic leadership in a year of intense activity ranging from efforts to ensure that loans remain available to students in the midst of a global credit crisis to the various phases necessary to transition to and support of a new President and CEO, coupled with his efforts to increase communications, strengthen our relationships and promote the profession have led the Association to significant achievements over the past year. In addition to these accomplishments, he has unselfishly served his profession, his institution, and the students of this nation by being an effective advocate for preserving America's investment in postsecondary education.

His contributions to the profession set a standard of excellence which will be remembered with deep gratitude.

Regional Award
The newly created NASFAA Regional Award is given to a regional association of student financial aid administrators for the creation and implementation of a substantially new initiative intended to promote innovative and positive change within student financial aid. The intent of the award is to encourage and publicize initiatives that have provided service to students, parents, families, or constituencies or colleagues within the profession. The award is not necessarily given annually.

This year, NASFAA is pleased to recognize the Rocky Mountain Association and the Southern Association for their submissions. The RMASFAA Leadership Pipeline project is a leadership development and mentoring program with a structured curriculum that includes specific monthly discussion topics, a Leadership Pipeline Seminar, and mentor and mentee manuals.

The SASFAA initiative is a Conference Manual and Guidebook. The Manual contains information useful in making fiscally sound conference planning decisions as well as practical guidance for state associations to use to develop their own conference manuals. Sample time lines, committee reports, basic conference outlines, general hotel requirements, etc. are included as well. The Manual and Guidebook is available on CD.

Our thanks to RMASFAA and SASFAA for submitting these initiatives.

The Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award is made each year for outstanding contributions to the literature on student financial aid.

Dr. Bridget Terry Long is this year's recipient for her contributions to the body of research on state aid programs, diversity issues, cost containment, remediation, and community college concerns. She applies economic theories and methods to examine various aspects of higher education in the United States. Her research focuses on areas such as access, choice, and success in postsecondary education, factors that influence college student outcomes, and the effects of financial aid policies on colleges. Several of her research papers examine the enrollment and distributional effects of state and federal financial aid programs. Dr. Long previously received a NASFAA Sponsored Research Grant that supported her research for "The Connection between Government Aid and College Pricing," published in the Association's Journal of Student Financial Aid in 2003.

Dr. Long is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The NASFAA State and Regional Leadership Awards are presented to one individual in each region who exhibits high integrity and character, who has shown creative leadership and has inspired and encouraged others to actively participate in professional development, who has made outstanding contributions at the regional and state levels over a sustained period of time, and who supports the goals and objectives of NASFAA. While announced at the NASFAA Conference, these awards are presented at the respective regional association conferences throughout the year. Each of the award recipients is listed below.

• EASFAA: Susan Howard, Director of Financial Aid at Antioch University, New England and a longtime member of the New Hampshire Association, EASFAA, and NASFAA.

• MASFAA: Daniel R. Mann, Director of Financial Aid, dedicated member of the Illinois Association, MASFAA, and NASFAA.

• RMASFAA: Janet Dodson, Vice President for Policy Analysis at the National Student Loan Program, a longtime member of the Nebraska Association, RMASFAA, and NASFAA.

• SASFAA: Betty Whalen, Director of Financial Aid at Winthrop University, and a tireless member of the South Carolina Association, SASFAA, and NASFAA.

• SWASFAA: Elaine Rivera, Director of Financial Aid at the University of Texas, Pan America, a dedicated member of the Texas Association, SWASFAA, and NASFAA.

• WASFAA: Doug Severs, Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships at Idaho State University, a longtime member of the Idaho Association, WASFAA, and NASFAA.

State Awards are presented each year to state associations that submit projects to be evaluated by NASFAA's Awards Committee. These awards recognize individual state associations of student financial aid administrators for outstanding projects that contribute to the financial aid profession in the service categories identified below. The association offering the winning project in each of the categories receives a banner to reside with the state association and a $500 prize check. The award winning projects are summarized below.

• Service to the Financial Aid Profession
  The Wisconsin association's "Student Employees in the Financial Aid Office: Capitalizing on our Resources" recognizes that many financial aid officers got their start in financial aid as work study students in the financial aid office. Member institutions were asked to offer a one-day registration to work study students in their office to attend the association's conference. The students had an opportunity to attend sessions which took them through some of the basics of financial aid, to hear some of the issues of concern to the profession, and to witness the camaraderie throughout the membership. The association realizes that this is an underutilized opportunity with great potential to encourage and educate work-study students, and to promote the financial aid profession as a career path, and to grow and secure the future of the financial aid profession. Our congratulations to the Wisconsin association!

• Service to Advance Access and Diversity
  The North Carolina association developed a Summer Enrichment Scholarship for Middle School Students. For the past three years, this project has awarded scholarships of up to $1,000 to eligible disadvantaged middle school students at least 13 years of age to attend a summer enrichment program on a college or university campus. The purpose of the scholarship is to encourage eligible youth to consider attending college after high school by providing them with the opportunity to participate in an enrichment program such as an Arts and Science Camp, an Anthropology Museum Summer Camp, or a Summer Institute in Choral Arts. Each recipient is assigned a volunteer mentor to assist the student in selecting a summer program, to request payments for attendance in the program, and to provide support and encouragement. Our congratulations to the North Carolina association.

• Chair, Kenneth E. Grugel, Clarion University, PA
• Sue Armstrong, William Jewell College, Mo
• Fred M. Carter, Birmingham-Southern College, AL
• N. Christine Crenshaw, Kansas State University, KS
• Lefter Daku, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, VA
• Mark L. Lindenmeyer, Loyola College, MD
• Theodore Malone, University of Alaska, AK
• Joseph P. Pettibon, II, Texas A&M University, TX
• Commission Director, Laurie A. Wolf, Des Moines Area Community College, IA

• Chair, Sharon Hassan, Goucher College, MD
• Brenda Brown, University of Miami School of Law, FL
• Wayne Harewood, III, Kingsborough Community College, NY
• Peg Mason, Colorado School of Mines, CO
• Jannine Oyama, Honolulu Community College, HI
• Elaine L. Rivera, The University of Texas-Pan American, TX
• Virginia K. Washington, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, IN
• Commission Director, Karen Krause, University of Texas at Arlington, TX

By Haley Chitty
NASFAA Assistant Director of Communications

Posted 07/09/08 to www.NASFAA.org. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited. Please submit Web Site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.