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President's Report I want to begin by thanking the 2001-2002 Executive Council, under Addalou Davis's leadership, for a good year. As she counts down those days to retirement, she will be spending some of them with us finishing out her career. Those of you who were at the 2002 conference in Boise, may no doubt agree, that it was one of our best to date. Hats off to Barb Alm, Brenda Reeser, Doug Severs, Ron Lee and the rest of the hard-working committee. Those of you who were unable to join us missed a wonderful program and beautiful city. You have a chance to join us in Honolulu for the 2003 conference. Mary San Agustin, Eric Nemoto and Ken Souza are the co-chairs for next year's conference, which will again be filled with sessions from which it will be difficult to choose and the environment will be hard to ignore as well. The conference will be April 13-15. There is plenty of time to plan. I realize the budget issues taking place at many of your institutions but hope you will be a participant.  This is also the time to renew your membership if
you did not attend the conference or submit your dues
separately. For details, review the newsletter wrap
or contact Pam Doerner, our Membership Chair
at anphd@uaa.alaska.edu.I would like to share some highlights of our plans for the coming year. We will be reviewing and updating our Strategic Plan, including our fiscal area. What is it that we do for our membership? How do we assist our membership? What are the needs of our membership? These are only some of the questions we will be addressing. Once we have a completed document, we will post it on our website. Another focus is the website as well as communication with the membership electronically. Please take a few minutes to review your profile at wasfaa.org so that it is current and take the opportunity to sign up for the WASFAA listserv. We are looking to move more toward use of the electronic services available to us. This allows us to inform our members more quickly as well as reduce some costs. One of the ideas is to move the newsletter to the web.What are your thoughts? We plan to continue with the decentralized NASFAA training. The topic for this fall is Additional Resources and Packaging Considerations that will include prepaid tuition, state scholarship programs, 529 plans, alternative loans, fellowships and assistantships. The spring training topics are still being explored by NASFAA but two potential modules are: When Title IV Isn't Enough: Debt Strategies, Options and Implications and Finding Community Service Opportunities in Your Community. More details will be provided. Reauthorization is just around the corner and our Federal Relations committee will have much to do. Your assistance and input is crucial so that institutions and individuals from the western region may be heard. The committee plans to collaborate with our state associations to combine efforts as well. Some of the hot topics are two provisions that expire on September 30, 2002. One allows schools with cohort default rates below 10 percent to provide a single disbursement, Section 428G(a)(3), for enrollment periods no longer than 1 semester, 1 trimester, 1 quarter or 4 months. The other provision, Section 428G(b)(1), allows schools with cohort default rates below 10 percent to waive the requirement that first-year, first-time borrowers loan proceeds be withheld for 30 days. NASFAA has been sending letters to both houses as well as discussing these items with Hill Staff. One of my roles as President is to participate in NASFAA Board Meetings and act as a liaison between WASFAA and NASFAA. If you have any issues or ideas for collaboration, let me know. This year will be filled with challenges and activity by your Executive Council. I welcome comments, suggestions and questions. The Executive Council is the body that has authority over the affairs of the Association but it is your organization. I appreciate your support and look forward to seeing many of you over the next year as well as hearing from you. Wishing each of you a safe, productive and enjoyable summer!
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