President's Report
by Doug Severs, Idaho State University

It has been a great spring/summer for professional development in the WASFAA Region. We had the largest ever Summer Advanced training in Hawaii and a maxed out (with a waiting list of 15) Summer Basic training in San Diego. Both the Summer Basic and Advanced students were enthusiastic and stuck to their training even with sunny, warm weather and the Pacific Ocean beckoning. Financial aid administration requires such loyalty... there is no other profession that requires such knowledge and skill.

For example:
When I was at a meeting on my campus this spring I had to explain why federal regulations would not allow awarding financial aid in certain situations. One of the Assistant Vice-Presidents was in the meeting and felt that he could not respond to the issues as he did not have much knowledge of federal financial aid administration. He asked me if there was a small pamphlet that could help him understand financial aid administration. He had received such a pamphlet from a conference in regard to administration of registration and records. Or, he said, is there a book "Financial Aid Administration for Dummies." As financial aid administration is a complex, ever-changing profession with numerous regulations, guidance to under-stand the regulations and guidance to understand the earlier guidance including gray areas and professional judgment, I had to tell him, "No, there is no such book." I gave him a copy of the regulations and the DOE Handbook. His staff was impressed that the explanation of the regulations was twice as large as the regulations themselves.

I was very fortunate to be asked to substitute for the Summer Advanced training and would highly recommend this training for advanced staff. The training topics were all critical for the effective administration of a financial aid office. Some of the topics presented were "Multiple Roles of Aid Administrators," "Financial Aid and Academic Collaboration," "Institutional Self Evaluation," and "Preparing for Audits and Program Reviews." Look for next year's Summer Advanced training to be in San Diego.

The Executive Council met in late June at the site of the Summer Basic training. We approved a formal budget and received state and committee reports. The state presidents met with me prior to the meeting to discuss their role on the Executive Council and to provide input on what WASFAA could do to help the states in their training and conference needs.

The WASFAA budget is in such good shape that the Executive Council decided not to charge a fee to members for the WASFAA/NASFAA training and to set up a fund to assist states with training efforts or to bring in speakers. We will also be offering assistance for research on financial aid in the WASFAA Region. Research grant information and application for the same appear in this issue of the WASFAA Newsletter and will soon be available on the WASFAA web page.

It has been a great start to my year as WASFAA President. I look forward to visiting with you at your state meetings.