Message from the President
by Julie Yeager Arthur

WASFAA is thirty years old. Where were you thirty years ago?

Thirty years ago, I was in junior high in Lacey, Washington. My classmates and I had just taken the Strong-Campbell Vocational Interest Survey and we were assigned the task of writing about our career plans.

The Strong-Campbell indicated that I was well suited for working outdoors and using mechanical skills. Insinuating that I probably should learn to repair tractors and other farm equipment.

I had other plans. I was convinced that I would become a nuclear physicist. I pursued the goal of a career in science in high school. When I got to college, I declared a major in Chemical Physics and took classes towards that goal. At the end of my sophomore year I changed my major to something much more practical, I became a Religion major who just happened to have a minor in Chemistry.

During my junior year, I received College Work-Study for the first time. The only problem was that the folks at the University of Puget Sound's Career Center could not seem find a work-study job for me, other than short-term assignments stuffing envelopes and typing. Finally, in desperation, they let me work in the Career Center providing administrative support to the Work-Study Program. Considering my major in Religion, it was fortunate that I had a work-study job which gave me the work experience that helped get my first job: as a financial aid counselor at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

I imagine that all of you had similar experiences-not that all of you changed your major from Chemical Physics to Religion-but that all of you had career plans that did not include becoming a financial aid administrator. After all, most of us didn't even know that financial aid was a career when we were making our plans!

It was 22 years ago when I started that first job in financial aid. Since graduating from college, I've worked in the financial aid offices of two independent colleges, two four-year public institutions and one community college, all in the WASFAA region. Along the way, I've been a member of WASFAA, PACFAA (while I worked the University of Guam), OASFAA (Pacific University and Portland State University), and CASFAA (University of the Pacific and College of the Redwoods).

Why am I still working in financial aid? Why do you work in financial aid? Somehow I doubt that it is because of the short hours, high pay, and great benefits! From getting to know many of you, I've found we have similar reasons for our persistence: we want to make a difference. We want to help more people achieve their goals through higher education.

Is it easy to work in financial aid? No, it isn't, but it is challenging, it's never boring, and it's a field where you know that you are helping people and by doing so, you are changing people's lives.

Does working in a financial aid office leave you with a lot of free time? I would guess that all of you, like me, always have more to do than you have time to do it and that you very rarely work only 40 hours per week. Considering this fact, why do I volunteer my time to work on WASFAA projects? And why did I ever consider running for president of WASFAA?

My experience has been that while I've enjoyed the many jobs I've held over the years, I also get a lot of satisfaction from my professional involvement in WASFAA and the various state associations of which I've been a member. My WASFAA peers have encouraged me, given me opportunities to learn, and pushed me to try out my skills in wider arenas, and become my best friends. By volunteering, I've been able to help other financial aid professionals hone their skills and better serve students.

My hope is that during the next year all of us can work together to become more effective at our jobs-that we can encourage each other, push each other, support each other, and by doing so, help each other continue to serve more and more students.

How can WASFAA help in this endeavor? Many of you are active in your state associations; many of you may feel your state association provides all the assistance you need-so where does WASFAA fit?

Well, I've met many of you through my favorite WASFAA activity training. How many of you have attended, or been on the staff of a WASFAA Summer Institute? How many of you have attended one of the many training activities sponsored by WASFAA?

WASFAA's greatest strength has been its ability to provide training across the region, even in places where other organizations haven't ventured. I want to insure that WASFAA continues to provide training opportunities to as many financial aid administrators in the WASFAA region as possible. I want us to work creatively and to listen, and by doing so, find new ways to provide training and discover new topics for training that will help us be more effective in our work on behalf of students.

In addition, I want to strengthen WASFAA's ability to communicate quickly with its members and to keep members informed of the important issues. During the next year, we will see many Notices of Proposed Rulemaking published; we all need to be informed of the issues and know what we need to do to respond to these NPRMs. I want WASFAA to keep you informed so you can act responsively.

My goal is to expand the use of both the WASFAA web site (www.wasfaa.org) and the WASFAA listserve (see page ???? for how to subscribe) and to use both to communicate regularly with all of WASFAA's members.

A special project I want us to take on this year is communicating to pre-college students and parents that college is possible and affordable. Many of you attended NASFAA last summer and heard Stan Ikenberry from the American Council on Education talk about the ACE report "Too Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing." The subtitle of the report, "What the Public Thinks and Knows about Paying for College," refers to the disturbing findings of the study. These findings revealed that most families overestimate the cost of college (by huge amounts) and they underestimate the availability of financial aid.

To help us address this issue in our region, I have asked Michael Johnson from Pacific University, to head up a special task force on College Access and Affordability. Our goal is to develop presentation materials which will help all of us communicate to families that college is possible.

These are just a few of the goals that I have for WASFAA as we enter the 21st century. The only way WASFAA can achieve these goals is with your help.

A Volunteer Form is included in this newsletter. If you haven't already done so, I want you to fill out that volunteer form and fax it to me. Someone will contact you and we will find a place to put you to work.

I want to thank all of you for working in financial aid. I know you work hard and that your jobs aren't often easy, but I want you to remember how many lives you've touched, and know that you make a difference. Let's work together and help make an even bigger difference for even more students.

I expect to see all of you at next year's conference in Anchorage!