NASFAA Leadership Training
by Addalou Davis - WASFAA 2000/2001 President Elect

On Saturday, March 4, 2000 I boarded a United Flight to Washington's National Airport to attend the NASFAA Leadership Training at the Crystal Gateway, Marriott located in Arlington, Virginia just a short metro ride from the NASFAA Offices. I arrived too late to find anyone interested in going to dinner, so room service it was!

Next morning, however, John Anderson (former WASFAA Treasurer and now CASFAA Treasurer) and I boarded the metro over to Georgetown and found a quaint little "french" restaurant for breakfast. We had to make a mandatory stop at the Barnes & Noble and then back to the Marriott for the opening session that began at noon. John View (SUNY) served as Leadership Conference Chair this year and he welcomed us and introduced the faculty. Irv Bodofsky, the current NASFAA National Chair (SUNY) and Rachel Lohman, chair-elect for NASFAA (Wilkes University-PA) were introduced and made opening remarks. Then they had us go around the room and introduce ourselves, say where we're from and the office and organization that we represented.

While doing that, I went through the list and made check marks by all of the names of the people from the WASFAA region. Since there were about 16 of us and many of us didn't know each other, I thought it might be a good idea to try to get together for dinner after the NASFAA reception. So, we put together our group and John Anderson knew a great place to eat and called for reservations. Fortunately, (as it turned out) they didn't take reservations. When we got off the metro and were walking to the restaurant, I told John it sure looked like we had more than 16 people and one of our group wasn't even able to make it because she wasn't feeling well. It turns out that the chair-elect of the RMASFAA region heard the plans, thought it was a great idea and decided that RMASFAA should join us. There were 22 people. The restaurant had no problem with that and it was great to have the two neighboring regional associations get together over dinner.

Back to the meeting -- I tend to get sidetracked by interesting stuff. Irv Bodofsky, and Rachel Lohman teamed to start the training with a truly inspiring session called: "Planning Your Year and Being An Effective Leader". They addressed issues such as planning activities during the term of office, motivating the leadership team, as well as addressing how important having policies and procedures are to organizations. The participants then had an opportunity to share experiences and offer suggestions about common issues. This turned out to be a rousing good session no one was shy and there were lots of great ideas and sharing during the discussion. Everyone in the room was impressed by John Anderson who shared his wisdom. My table kept saying how lucky California is to have him and I reminded them, WASFAA too!

After a short break, David Cecil (Transylvania University, KY) and David Myette (Champlain College, VT) offered a session called "Financial and Management Issues for State and Regional Associations". There are various legal, financial and management issues that impact any organization. Both had been prior Treasurers as well as prior Presidents of their associations and shared information about record keeping, contracts, tax-exempt status, bonding and personal versus organizational liability. They shared a situation in which a Treasurer of one of the organizations absconded with $79,000 from the treasury (both in cash and by personal use of the organization's credit card). They suggested a system of checks and balances to prevent an occurrence of this for other organizations. (By the way she is in jail and has to make restitution.)

The day ended at 5:00 and we were given instructions on Metro travel to the NASFAA office for a wonderful reception and to meet almost all of the NASFAA staff. We were given tours of the offices and were able to put faces together with the voices we hear on the phone when we call NASFAA with questions. We were almost sorry that we had made dinner plans, because the hors d'oeuvres were plentiful and delicious and could have made our meal! The NASFAA staff probably had a wonderful lunch the following day. The NASFAA offices are beautiful and the staff members are as friendly and helpful in person as they are on the phone.

Back to the dinner: There were so many of us that we didn't all get to sit at one table, but the restaurant provided a sort of "L" shaped situation. It turned out that a couple of our WASFAA people ended up at the RMASFAA table, but we all had a great time and John Anderson did GREAT picking a place with wonderful food. The people who went to dinner were: Cheryl Anderson, Idaho President-elect; John Anderson, California Treasurer; Linda Bisesi, California Vice-President; Don Black, Oregon President-elect; Diana Brown, California Ethnic Diversity Member-at-Large; Connie Burden, California President-elect; Alvin Camp, Nevada President- elect; Addalou Davis, WASFAA President-elect; Karen Driscoll, Washington Treasurer-elect; Frank Green, Hawaii President-elect; Jackie Gresham, Oregon Treasurer-elect; Sherri Hancock, California Community Colleges President-elect; Jennifer Heller, Arizona Regulatory Committee Chair; Peter Miller, Alaska President-elect; Wendy Olsen, Washington President-elect; and Philip Schroeder, Arizona President-elect. To be truthful, one of the above wasn't able to go to dinner, but I just cannot remember so included everyone who would have been there if they could have been there! The restaurant was Louisiana style and they offered ribs, catfish, prime rib, steak and either "American" or Cajun style. Great place. It gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and plan the visits to the Hill that were coming up as part of the conference.

Next morning (too bright and early for the WASFAA Region) we met for a continental breakfast and the meeting began with a "Regional and State Exchange of Ideas and Issues". We were given flip charts and a series of issues to address in our small table groups and then the issues and ideas were shared with the larger group. The participants came up with the topic ideas: Professional issues: (making sure your school knows about the crucial role the aid administrator plays in recruitment and retention and having a public relations committee or project); Contract services: (working with the conference hotel, web site contractors, and who has authority to sign contracts on behalf of the organization); Web site: (there were more questions than solutions); Early Awareness Programs: (some states are involved in very creative programs); Associate members: (In some states anyone interested in student aid can be an active member, run for office and vote. In other states, only financial aid administrators can be active members. But all agreed that Associate members must be valued for their willingness to serve the association); Membership Issues: (how to solicit greater participation in associations, using training as a vehicle for greater membership); Recruiting volunteers (using a form, using mentors to get volunteers, new member sessions and receptions, using the web site and making sure they have the school's permission to do volunteer work); Grant writing: (some states provide funds for their members to attend workshops and to do research); Long Range Planning: (derived from the organization's mission, action committees to implement long range goals or an annual executive retreat); Mission statements: (every organization should have one and it needs to be communicated to the membership, and refined when necessary); Divisive Issues: (Communication with all segments, developing resolutions to issues that are win/win and appreciating the diversity of opinion); Developing Leaders: (work with volunteers to expand the ir learning curve and work on higher level projects as they grow, offering leadership training sessions and whether committee chairs should "retreat" to set goals).

After a break, we learned about the resources available to state and regional associations from NASFAA. John View (conference chair), Roland Zizer and Tim Christensen (NASFAA staff) presented this session about using NASFAA to provide assistance with state and regional association management. Also that training materials published by NASFAA for state and regional training are available.

Following lunch, Dallas Martin (NASFAA President) updated the group on current student aid issues and the status of student aid related legislation. He also talked about the ways that we could effectively demonstrate to Congress the administrative issues that affect our students and our institutions.

Marty Guthrie (NASFAA Director of Governmental Affairs) and Larry Zaglaniczny (NASFAA Director of Congressional Relations), coached us about our visits to the Hill. They gave us Metro directions to the various office buildings and we were advised to relax and not be fearful of the visits. This was an informative and humorous session.

On Tuesday, after breakfast, we all set out for our visits with Senators, Representatives and/or their aids. While all of us making one or two little visits, Don Black and Jackie Gresham took the prize. I don't even remember the number of visits they made, but I think I remember they said that they visited every Senator and every Representative from Oregon! They should get a prize just for being able to negotiate their way to all those buildings.

We returned to find box lunches and as we ate, we shared our experiences, many of which were quite humorous. For those people who may have feared this exercise, it was nice to hear that no one was eaten up by a dragon, chewed up and spit out for lunch or came to any other kind of harm. Some were disappointed that staff met with them instead of the actual representative, but it was "SUPER TUESDAY" after all, and many of the actual legislators were at home campaigning.

The NASFAA Leadership Training is a great way to meet with your counterparts from other states and regions so that you can network during the year. I hope that you will decide to run for a state or regional office so that you will be offered this great opportunity.