At the 2009 NASFAA Conference last week in San Antonio, Incoming National Chair Barry Simmons of Virginia Tech set the tone for the coming academic year, scanning the current environment, assessing where NASFAA is today and where it is going.
"As we scan our environment, we find “it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times,” said Simmons. "Thank 19th century social reform advocate Charles Dickens, for those words. The stock market has plummeted, unemployment continues to approach 10% nationally and what we thought were venerable American business institutions find themselves in bankruptcy, both dissolution and reorganization. Yet, on the other hand, we have an administration in Washington that finally gets it - that the future of this great nation lies in the education of its populace - and especially in post-high school educational pursuits.
"While many in higher education have approached workforce development as the pursuit of physical skills, it’s past time that we recognize workforce development as encompassing all skills, physical and intellectual, needed to regain and then maintain the United States’ world class leadership.
"... NASFAA is poised to be a leader in advocacy and implementation for access to workforce development. The National Conversation Initiative effort is a long overdue response to NASFAA’s need for a comprehensive, coherent and focused public policy agenda geared toward innovation and creativity rather than reaction alone. NASFAA has made difficult financial decisions over the past year to ensure financial stability so that we can concentrate on our core mission. NASFAA continues to explore ways to encourage diversity in our clientele, our membership and in our vision. This vision includes the re-naming of the NASFAA committee responsible for this critical endeavor to the 'Access, Diversity and Excellence' committee.
"... Financial aid administrators manage a multi-billion dollar industry…we’re responsible for ensuring the financial access of our students to educational opportunity and success…don’t minimize your importance to your students, your institution, your community, your nation…don’t minimize the criticality of well-trained, competent, ethical aid administrators.
"In the world of higher education, the financial aid administrator is still relatively new…NASFAA itself is not fifty years old. Now is the time for aid administrators to formalize daily endeavors into a profession. We often refer to ourselves as a profession but there’s no credentialing. We have a set of professional ethics, but we have no sanctions. We play an important role in the future of our country but we often are treated as “plumbers of the abstract’ rather than the compassionate human beings caught between sometimes harsh regulations and the reality of human needs.
"Several NASFAA committees will be looking at this issue during the 2009-10 year and bringing it forth for discussion, debate and serious examination. What are the intended outcomes? What are the unintended consequences? What are the implications for volunteerism…for long practicing aid administrators and what are the implications for diversity within the profession? These are just a few of the questions to be addressed."
Posted 07/20/09 to www.NASFAA.org. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited. Please submit Web site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.
