President's Report
by WASFAA President Addalou Davis, McGeorge School of Law
It was just yesterday I was sitting in my office wondering what in the world I
would write about for this issue. Outside of coming back to work and having 563
emails and a full voice-mailbox, nothing especially spectacular happened since
the last newsletter.
Into my office walks a young student who has a credit problem. Because of the
credit problem (and during Fall finals), she got a credit denial for the alternative
loan she needs to pay Spring tuition and living expenses. This is a situation
where the student's grandmother passed away. The student's mother has a substance
abuse problem and was unable to cope with the funeral arrangements.
The student takes over (like a good law student would) and puts the expenses on
a credit card with the assurance from mom that when the bill came in mom will
pay it off. In fact, it didn't get paid off for three months and the student only
found out when she got the credit denial for the alternative loan. She is working
20 hours per week, taking 17 units and is a member of one of our moot court
teams. I "found" a $5000 Perkins loan for this student.
Each of us has a story like this, right? The students are why we come to work
every day.We can feel so good at the end of a day like yesterday because we know
that we make a difference in someone's life; that their success in our school is
helped along because we are able to contribute to it by relieving their financial
stress. One night while watching Dateline NBC, I noticed that the public
defender in a nationally very high profile case looked familiar.His name came to
me as well as the amount of debt he left school with. The next day I'm frantically
thumbing through default notices because it is hard to believe that he actually
became a public defender with that amount of debt. His name is not on any list.
(Whew) That same night, on the local 11:00 news, I see another public
defender who is the attorney on a local (but also nationally) high profile case. He
was so smart that he got more scholarship than loan and so I didn't have to
worry about a possible default. It made me proud to see that our students do
actually realize their dreams.
I am looking forward to attending the Oregon state conference in early February
and the Pacific Islands conference in early March. I guess that will end my "grand
tour" and I will miss the travel experiences and meeting the
wonderful people in our profession in the WASFAA region.
As I said at the state conferences, I have loved every hour of
every day being the WASFAA President. Hopefully, someone
out there will be encouraged to get involved in their state association
and WASFAA working toward being a state or regional
(or national?) president in the future.
 Good luck to each of you as you embark upon the new
year and the Spring Semester, and with the hope that you
had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends.
Peace... until the next time!
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