IASFAA Executive Council Teleconference Minutes February 6, 2014

Members present: Jen Sassman, Julie Haack, Heather Gaumer, Gisella Baker, Sara Harrington, Greg Geistkemper, Pam Perry, Elizabeth Minard, Steve Loven, Christine Ditter, Karen Snyder, Mary Jo Smith, Lisa Croat, Mary Jacobsen, Brandi Stone-Miller, Carolyn Schwendemen, Jennifer Schroeder, Amy Gaffney, Joan Meyer, Julie Dunn, Chad Olson, Kristi Fuller Meeting called to order by President Jen Sassman at 10:20 Approve December 12, 2013 minutes  Motion – Heather Gaumer made a motion to approve the correction to minutes  Second – Kristi Fuller seconded the motion  Motion carries Treasurer’s Report – Greg Geistkempter/Bethany Rinderknecht Report is attached to end of minutes Discussion – Greg will send investment options out for input from the executive council  Motion – Julie Haack made a motion to approve the Treasurer’s Report  Second – Gisella Baker seconded the motion  Motion carries Past President – Heather Gaumer I will attend the Finance Committee Meeting scheduled for February 13th to review association finances. I want to commend Julie Haack, President-Elect, for putting together a wonderful ballot for IASFAA officers. Thanks to everyone that ran for office and congratulate those elected. I am available to any committee or officer that wants input or help on a project or committee work. President – Jen Sassman I attended the MASFAA Board Meeting in Minneapolis, MN January 21-22, 2014. We discussed MASFAA’s Leadership Symposium and their Summer Institute, both of which IASFAA has encouraged attendance in the past. IASFAA can send up to two individuals to the Leadership event, so if you would like to attend or have someone in mind who would benefit, please let me know. Of course anyone can sign up for the Summer Institute which I would highly recommend for new financial aid professionals. IASFAA does have three scholarships that will pay up to $250 of the expenses. The Professional Development committee will be sharing information about how to apply for those soon. These events are planned to happen in June at the same time so resources can be shared. That is good for participants as well, because rides and/or rooms can be shared as well.

I would like to thank Heather Gaumer for representing IASFAA later this month during the MASFAA Hill Visit to Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for representing the association and the students we serve. I know you will do a fabulous job!

I plan to attend the MASFAA board meeting on June 2-3 as the Iowa state representative.

MASFAA had strong representation on the NASFAA ballot. Congratulations to Dan Mann (U of Illinois), Paula Luff (DePaul University), and Craig Slaugther (DePauw University) on being elected to serve NASFAA during the 2014-2015 year! Dan Mann was elected to serve as the National Chair for 2015-16 and will serve as National Chair-Elect for 2014-15. Paula Luff and Craig Slaughter were elected to serve as Representatives-at-Large.

One last piece of MASFAA business. The conference will be held in West Virginia this coming Oct.12-15. They plan to host a MASFAAs Got Talent, so if you have talent or know someone who does, please forward their name to me.

Congratulations to IASFAAs 2014-15 elected officers. It was an exciting election. Julie will share the results shortly if you have not already seen from the listserv announcement. I also want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who was willing to put their name on the ballot. That is a true testament to their dedication towards the profession. Thank you all!

I would like to call for a motion to destroy the IASFAA ballots.  Motion – Greg Geistkemper made a motion to destroy the IASFAA ballots  Second – Julie Haack seconded the motion  Motion carries I cannot thank the current board and committee chairs enough for the work that you all are doing this year. Please know that I am willing to be a sounding board or an extra set of hands if your committee needs my assistance.

President Elect – Julie Haack Elections were held January 22-30 and it was an exciting race! Here are the results for the 2014-15 Executive Council:

President Elect – Kristi Fuller, Drake Vice President – Tristan Lynn, AIB Secretary – Mindi Bucklin, Mt. Mercy Treasurer Elect – Molly Weber, Wartburg Theological Seminary Delegate at large – Carolyn Schwendeman, Luther College

Elected officers will assume their roles after the Spring conference in April, with the exception of Treasurer Elect who will assume duties at the Summer Retreat. President elect Kristi Fuller is booked and ready to go to NASFAA Leadership in March, which is her first duty of office. Again, I want to thank everyone who agreed to run for an elected position and offer their time and expertise to IASFAA. We greatly appreciate it.

Tentative Summer Retreat dates are June 25-26 on the St. Ambrose campus in Davenport, Iowa. Any location changes will be announced as quickly as possible.

Vice President – Gisella Baker I did again what I could with Reconciliation, with my current access to Go Emerchant, but then had to pass it on to Greg. When I talked to him yesterday, he was struggling with it but slowly making progress. This morning he let me know that he was able to figure it out and he just needs to remove a few GoEmerchant deposits from August (which is also a complex process) and we will be completely reconciled thru January! It will be interesting to see how it continues to go with the next round of invoices coming our way. I would like to recommend that for next year, the VP is given access to GoEmerchant system/reports to be better equipped while working the reconciliation process. It sounds that in the past it was a fairly easy and quick process to reconcile; but certainly not anymore. This is now definitely a team effort. Secretary – Sara Harrington Please send me your reports if you haven’t already and let me know if you need help with anything. Delegates – Todd Brown, Pam Perry, Kristi Fuller The Delegates are finishing up work on updating Policies and Procedures. Iowa College Student Aid Commission Report – Todd Brown No report Awards Committee – Elizabeth Minard/Mary Jo Smith The Awards Committee had our first teleconference late January and we began to plan for the spring conference. I (Elizabeth Minard) will be on maternity leave sometime after mid to late March so Mary Jo Smith (co-chair) will be presenting awards. I will have more details at our next IASFAA teleconference. Discussion – MASFAA past president will present MASFAA awards at the spring IASFAA conference By-Laws Committee – Delegates No report Community Outreach Committee – Steve Loven/Lisa Croat We completed our webinar series for school counselors in December and January. Thanks to Tim Bakula of UNI for the federal update and Todd Brown of ICSAC for the state update. Registration was over 30 for both of these sessions, but less than 15 for the FAFSA on the web demo in early January. The governor will be signing a proclamation on February 20th at 3 PM in his capitol office declaring February as financial aid awareness month. This will take place after the drive in directors workshop, and we would like as many exec council members in attendance as possible. Be on the lookout for information on the annual Frieda award based on campus financial aid awareness activities. This will be coming out in early March. Exhibitor Relations – Karen Snyder/Kathie Aswegan I previously mentioned receiving feedback that the fee for exhibiting in Iowa is high and that some exhibitors may need to resort to exhibiting once a year than at both conferences. I contacted other exhibitor relations’ chairs from other states in MASFAA and received four responses. Missouri is the only state that charges less than we do to exhibit and their price is $400. They do require membership to exhibit and that fee is $175. Their conference fee is $200. So I believe someone exhibiting at the Missouri conference would end up paying more because of the membership and conference fee being higher than we charge in Iowa. Wisconsin charges $600 to exhibit and one complimentary conference fee is included. Minnesota charges $500, membership is required to be paid and the exhibitor pays the conference fee. West Virginia charges $750 to exhibit and the conference fee is complimentary. They as well as Wisconsin provide advertising on their website once the exhibitor has registered to exhibit. I am inclined to suggest that our exhibiting fee is reasonable compared to the others I have identified. I do not wish to recommend a change unless anyone else has a reason to pursue it. Do we want to raise it and consider a complimentary conference fee to be included? Should we include advertising on our website as another perk? If there are no changes I will contact the exhibitor who mentioned Iowa’s rate being high and tell them I have done some research and feel that our fee is reasonable in comparison and will remain the same for the near future.

 Discussion – Do other states offer two conferences? Some, not all. Should we invite exhibitors to the pre-conference? It would be an additional cost for rooms but probably wouldn’t give much traffic. We should be careful when using “complimentary” in any wording to exhibitors because this could be problematic as far as reviews go. We’d like to get the majority of state associations to respond to queries about their fees then provide that data to exhibitors. Mary will see how much it would cost of exhibitors to advertise on the IASFAA website. Electronic Services Committee – Chris Ditter/Mary Jacobsen We have been working with the Program Committee to get registration and exhibitor information ready for the website for the spring conference. The IASFAA election took place on the IASFAA website. Directors Drive-In Workshop registration is also live on the website. Fall award recipients have been updated on the website. Federal and State Issues Committee – Tristan Lynn/Brandi Stone-Miller  Almost finished with IASFAA-by-the-Numbers. Would like to get them printed and mailed to legislators before the drive-in workshop.  Website enhancement of new “link page” specifically giving a one-stop resources page for our members is ready to be placed on the website. We will be contacting the electronic services committee in the near future to determine the best place/way to put it on the website.  We are sending weekly/biweekly emails of state and federal updates. As always, Julie Leeper has been very helpful with the state updates. We have also added a couple of sentences to the bottom of all our updates to encourage members to be more active with the issues (see below). o The Federal and State Issues Committee will be providing regular updates throughout this year’s legislative session. If you see anything that may be of interest to the membership of IASFAA in relation to federal and/or state issues, please let us know and we will add the information to our updates. You can see who is a member of the committee at http://www.iasfaa.com/docs/committees/FedStateIssues/index.html.  Tristan will be shadowing Julie Leeper Tuesday, February 18 at the Capitol. A member of the Federal and State Issues Committee shadowing someone at the Capitol may be something to look into for the future. This would give our members a more in depth look at the political climate in the state.  Working on developing a committee guide. Discussion – MASFAA will be moving forward with a blog and will try to get all committees to participate and make it more conversational. Should we create a communications committee to take over our blog and newsletter committees? More conversation to be had at a later time. Do we want the links to be their own page or go to a pdf? If we make a new links page, it is a one-time cost of $125 so we will need to review the budget. Finance Committee – Jen Sassman The Finance Committee plans to meet via telenet next Thursday, February 13th to discuss any proposals we plan to make for the 2014-15 year. On the table are possible membership dues increases for 2014-15, whether or not there should be a separate budget line item for pre- conference workshops and options for our next investment. Newsletter Committee – Carolyn Schwendeman/Amy Norton The winter edition of the IASFAA newsletter was posted to the website on January 31. The summer newsletter is scheduled for publication in June.

Professional Development Committee – Jennifer Schroeder/Marie Pleggenkuhle The Director’s Drive in Workshop will be held on Thursday February 20th at the AIB campus in Des Moines. If you are interested in attending, please register now. If you have questions you would like to discuss, please submit with your registration or email me. The second meeting for the Leadership Symposium was postponed due to weather. The group will meet on Wednesday February 19 at Stoney Creek Inn in Johnston. We are currently working on a format to allow interested parties the opportunities to apply for a MASFAA Summer Institute Scholarship. Watch the list serv and website for more details when they become available.

Program Committee – Amy Gaffney/Julie Dunn Program committee conference call last held on Friday January 31. Sessions coming together nicely. Do need some ideas for presenters on a few sessions, and I would like to send the info out to this exec group to see if you are inspired to help find a presenter on any of themJ. Have a pre-conference workshop planned on diversity. Composing a contract for the speakers to sign. Hope to set the conference rate soon and be able to post tentative schedule out to website sooner than last fall. Will have Thursday evening dinner and awards presentations. Sent IASFAA scholarship check to Chad at Mercy College of Des Moines with certificate. Site Coordinating Committee – Joan Meyer/Chad Olson The Site Committee has been attending the Program Committee conference calls and acting as liaison between the Program Committee and Stoney Creek getting any and all questions answered in a timely manner (usually immediately-Stoney Creek is FANTASTIC to work with). We will be selecting the meals for the conference in the near future. Hotel deadline date is March 19. There is no online hotel registration at Stoney Creek. Attendees can call 800-659- 2220, and ask for the IASFAA block. Approval of Officer and Committee Reports  Motion – Sara Harrington made a motion to approve the reports  Second – Greg Geistkemper seconded the motion  Motion carries Old Business none New Business MASFAA 2015 will be at the Marriott Convention Center in Coralville. Aaron Steffens will take over as president at the MASFAA conference this summer, so please attend to show your support if possible. Jamie Malone is retiring from the Department of Education so Jen Sassman will send an email of thanks from IASFAA. Adjournment  Motion – Kristi Fuller made a motion to adjourn  Second – Sara Harrington seconded the motion  Motion carries Respectfully submitted by Sara Harrington, Secretary