01 Apr A Message from the CAPFAA President 2014-2015

Greetings to all CAPFAA Members, Associate Members, and those who are “just looking”! We welcome you to this website and we hope you will find the information contained here helpful as you manage your work at your institutions.

CAPFAA is a great, long-standing membership organization. For those of us who have been in the financial aid profession more that 30-35 years (that would include me…), I know that CAPFAA was, and is, an extremely important part of our professional upbringing. I personally cannot imagine my career without the help, the mentoring, the learning by example, and the camaraderie of our organization. Our regional and national organizations, EASFAA and NASFAA, are great as well, but there is nothing like the connection with good and generous colleagues locally.

We all know how our jobs change, whether it is the regulatory complexity that we must work under and comply with, or whether it is the software, or social media or the smartphone revolution that we all have to contend with on a daily basis. CAPFAA provides a framework for training, for helping us all stay on top of things so that we are ready to help our students (and so that we are ready for that audit!). CAPFAA is essential for us in this profession that requires constant updating—from reviewing Dear Colleague Letters from the federal government to learning about the latest trends in website design, from looking at best practices in communication to learning about how best to communicate with our students.

I love being in a profession that requires me to learn constantly (that’s one way to stay “young at heart”). I want you to know that all of us have to continually learn. For those of you in your first five years of work in financial aid, you’ll find colleagues at CAPFAA who will be generous with their time and talents; for those of us who have been in the field for many years, being around the “newbies” gives us a much-needed shot in the arm. We all need each other and CAPFAA gives us the structure to interact with each other.

CAPFAA provides several general meetings of the membership, notably the December Winter Conference and the Annual Business Meeting (typically held in early June). There are numerous chances for training in the Fall and the Spring, some targeted for graduate and professional school aid officers. All of these meetings are excellent opportunities to get out of the office and the everyday grind and to take time to learn something new and discuss financial aid issues more generally. It is through these kinds of discussions that a true love of the profession can grow. (Yes, it is possible to love financial aid…)

Your leadership (made up of the President, the President-Elect, Past-President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, EASFAA representative, and the Associate Member representative) meet regularly with the chairs of the various committees as an Executive Committee. The Executive Committee ensures the financial health of the organization and ensures that CAPFAA adheres to all By-Laws.

We hope you will stay with us on our website for a while. But, more importantly, we hope you will join us if you are not a member already, and we do hope to see you at a meeting.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our next meetings. Anyone ready for our Annual Business Meeting in June when the snow storms of Winter 2015 will be a distant memory?

Caesar Storlazzi

CAPFAA President 2014-2015