CASFAAHigh School Relations Committee

Meeting Minutes

02/13/2006

  1. Call to order

Frank Ramirezcalled to order the regular meeting of the CASFAA High School Relations Committee at 9:10am on 2/13/2006 in GlendaleCommunityCollegeStudentCenter (RM 212 B/C).

  1. Roll call

The following people were present:

-Frank Ramirez, CSU Bakersfield (Co-Chair)

-Anafe Robinson, LAMissionCollege (Co-Chair)

-Carina Sanchez, All Student Loan

-BryanDickason, California Student Aid Commission

-Cheryl Foster, EdFund

-Alfredo Perez, EdFund

-Pat Robles-Friebert, Sallie-Mae

-Karen Shephard, Financial Aid Advisory Service

-Ray Parris, Sun Trust

-Cindy Contreras, EdFund

-Deb Barker-Garcia, EdFund

-Donna Huber, AES

-Luke Downer, Edamerica

-Sarah Coleman, Comerica CollEDGE Loans

-Dennis Schroeder, Glendale Community College

  1. Agenda Items

-Welcome: The 2006 High School Relations Committee was welcomed by the committee co-chairs (Anafe Robinson and Frank Ramirez). The committee thanked Dr. Pat Hurley (Director Office of Financial Aid, GlendaleCommunity College) for hosting the meeting on her campus and providing the pre-meeting snacks. Dr. Hurley gave a greeting on behalf of her and the campus.

-Housekeeping: Frank reviewed some housekeeping issues regarding location of restrooms and review of meeting agenda. The contact information was also reviewed on how to contact either committee co-chair. Travel reimbursement procedures were reviewed for those that would need reimbursement of travel expenses for this meeting.

-Future Meetings: Meeting time, date and locations were discussed for future meetings. The following schedule was finalized for future meetings:

  • May 19th – Conference Call
  • July 21st – Conference Call
  • August 9th – In-Person (Location will be announced at later date. Some possible locations were one of the Claremont Colleges or one of the facilities being used in Ontario for the upcoming CASFAA Conference. The Ontario area was an attractive place due to the airport being accessible to those that travel by air).

-SUMMARY OF 2006 PROJECTS

  • High School Counselor Workshops:

The 2005 workshop series showed an increase in attendance to an estimated 2208 attendees. Discussion was started about expanding the San Bernadino and Sacramento locations into 2 days due to the amount of people that have been attending those workshops. Cheryl Foster stated that EdFund had not finished the executive summary for this workshop series, but would share this report once it becomes available.

  • Financial Aid Night Network:

Little progress was made in this project due to some time constraints. The committee demonstrated an interest in taking on this project for 2006. Some ideas that surfaced for this year’s project were about possibly including the finished product as part of the “Cash Box” distributed by CSAC or distributing it at the Cash for College events. Further work will be done to get this project going.

  • NACAC/WACAC College Fairs:

All members involved in this project last year expressed an interest in taking part this year. Some ideas for improving this years events were discussed:

-Feeding off the presentation: We should look into having the presenters in the Financial Aid session know where our table will be so they can direct parents our way after their session

-Identifiers: The idea was discussed about developing some sort of identifying piece we can use to catch parents and students attention (ex. table tents, table cloths with CASFAA logo).

-Having a CASFAA Booth separate from the CounselingCenter table we currently have.

-Better communication with NACAC/WACAC: Participants in the San Diego events were concerned that NACAC representatives didn’t know who CASFAA was. We will need to make sure that all site coordinators know who we are.

  • Review of CSAC/EdFund Material:

This is an ongoing project to help give feed back about the Fund Your Future workbook. EdFund reported receiving a few comments from committee members that was well appreciated. EdFund strives to get different feed back on this publication in order to keep it updated with current information.

  • Fund Development:

This area went well last year due to the great response from lenders who were eager to have their materials included as part of the “goody bag” that counselors receive at each Counselor Workshop. New ides were shared regarding expanding this fund development by possibly having sponsor’s signs hanging around the room, having a lender fund the food, or possibly allowing lenders to have tables set up near the registration desk. These items will be tabled for discussion at a future meeting after more information if received from the Fund Development Committee regarding our parameters for this activity.

  • Statement of Committee’s Purpose:

Everybody agreed on continuing with our current Mission Statement. Each member was very excited about starting the new year and continuing the great work this committee does.

-NEW BUSINNESS

  • Assist CSAC and EdFund in Reviewing Publications:

EdFund has again requested that our committee be part of the review process. Everyone will be emailed with information, once it becomes available, regarding how the suggestions should be sent in. Cheryl stated that they will be sent to Christina Mullan since she is the person in charge of gathering this feedback.

  • High School Counselors Workshops:
  • Further discussion was made regarding contents in the “Goody Bag”. The list of items (refer to agenda) continues to be a very good and diverse amount of recourses counselors can utilize to help them at their campus. The Tax Benefits for Higher Education booklet from EdFund was not included last year because it had not been updated. This booklet is in the process of being updated, so the committee agreed to add it to the list of other items that will be included (refer to agenda).
  • Other items suggested as possible additions to this year’s bag include a list of Translated Financial Aid Terms. With the increased number of languages in California, a quick reference guide that counselors can refer to as a tool in helping them communicate with the diverse student population whose primary language is something other than English.
  • Brian suggested adding to the reference guide a page referring counselors to the new Student Web Grants web sight
  • Another suggestion was made about possibly having a page with all the Cash for College (CFC) locations listed. This may be a challenge since these locations are not finalized until after November. We will be contacting Despina regarding this possibility and to inform her that the CFC portion of the presentation should be reduced to 15 minutes due to limitations in time for the morning session. We will also be proposing to have a CASFAA presenter do this portion due to the challenge of getting a CFC representative at each workshop.
  • We will be working with Doris regarding the CSAC portion of the presentation due to the content being based on what CASFAA wants presented.
  • A suggestion was made to change the FAFSA Line-By-Line workshop from being focused on the paper version to a FAFSA On-The-Web focus. One concern was regarding when the new worksheet will be released. This will be looked into and presented at next meeting.
  • A suggestion was made regarding moving the AB 540 information and Consultant Fraud information to the morning session due to the increased request for this information from counselors. A new Track B will be developed once we start working on the presentation.
  • NACAC/WACAC College Fairs:

Further discussion was made regarding improving college fair participation. One area that can possibly help would be if there was an increase in membership on this committee. Due to the size of the committee, some members will be volunteering at multiple sights. Anafe and Frank will review the list of interested CASFAA members to see if there are any people that have not been contact, but expressed an interest in being part of this committee.

Despina Costopolus (CFC Coordinator) had requested to see if this committee would be willing to collect informational cards from students at the college fairs. The purpose of this data collection was to create a data base of people that can be contacted for upcoming workshops in 2007. The committee unanimously disagreed with this request due to the responsibility of collecting this personal and confidential information. The final decision will be relayed to Despina.

Along with the participation in college fairs, WACAC has requested that CASFAA present a workshop at the upcoming WACAC Conference in May. The committee agreed to take part in this conference. Cheryl and Anafe volunteered to be presenters at the conference on behalf of CASFAA. Some possible topics that we can present include “How to Set-Up a Financial Aid Night” or “Tips For Doing a Bilingual Workshop”. Frank, Anafe, and Cheryl will meet at a later date to set this up.

  • FANN:

We will start setting up this committee after the NACAC/WACAC projects.

  • Professional Development:

We will be looking into possible session for the CASFAA Conference. Pat offered to look into a joint workshop presented with the Thomas Rivera Research Institute. This partnership worked well last year and was received well by the CASFAA members.

  • CASFAA Newsletter Article:

Some ideas were presented as possible article topics:

  • WACAC/NACAC College Fairs
  • Updates from NASFAA regarding issues that will affect high school students.
  • Professional Development Workshop offered at conference
  • High School Counselor Workshops

It was also suggested to start collecting pictures from each event as part of our article.

Adjourned @ 12:35pm