In this issue. Check out MSACROA s social networking pages!

Transcription

1 Spring 2015 In this issue Check out MSACROA s social networking pages! Greetings from the President Message from the President-Elect Message from the Past-President 84th Annual Meeting in Photos 2015 Executive Committee Federal Regulations Update Website Updates Save the Date MSACROA Membership Renewal Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Connect with us on LinkedIn. Click here to check out The MSACROA Daily.

2 Greetings from the President Happy Spring! It is hard to believe that we are nearly three months in to As I compose this message I am wondering if spring will ever truly return to Pittsburgh and the Middle States region! Hopefully warm temperatures will be in our near future. As I think back I am amazed that it has already been four and a half months since our 2014 Conference and Meeting in Niagara Falls. I went to send out a special thanks to all of those who participated in the conference, especially the presenters who offered us their time and talents over the course of the conference. I also want to thank the awesome LAC committee and their volunteers for their hard work before and during the conference. We could not pull this off without the efforts this special group of dedicated MSACROANs! I am excited that the 2015 Conference and Annual Meeting will be held at Dover Downs, in Dover Delaware from November 30 th through December 2 nd. If you haven t already marked your calendars please do so now and be on the lookout for more information from President-Elect Richard Sunday. If you plan to attend the AACRAO conference in Baltimore in April please consider joining your MSACROA colleagues for dinner on Tuesday, April 14. We will meet at 6:30 PM at the Kona Grill located next to the Convention Center at 1 E. Pratt Street. Please RSVP to mathay@pitt.edu by Tuesday, March 31. Hope to see you in Baltimore! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve as your President! Regards, Patti Patti Mathay MSACROA President University Registrar, University of Pittsburgh

3 Message from the President Elect As we plan for the 2015 Annual MSACROA Conferencea special 85 th anniversary- fond memories of our 2014 conference still are fresh in my mind. Meeting new professionals and reconnecting with longtime colleagues and friends always is a special part of every MSACROA conference. What stood out this year was how many of our longtime colleagues and friends, myself included, had new titles, new roles, new office structures, even new workplaces. Admission professionals told me that to successfully recruit, increasingly they spend time working on financial aid, advisement and student schedule issues. Registrars reported that they are more involved in recruitment activities focused on continuing student retention and in predicting enrollment patterns. Simply put, our boundaries are expanding we are increasingly responsible for areas outside of our traditionally-defined scope. This year s Conference Theme will center on our Expanding Boundaries - ways our daily roles are moving beyond our traditional office borders and, more importantly, ways we can expand our own boundaries. Our Program Committee is working hard to create a varied conference program with sessions that will help you to add and diversify skills, to explore big-picture issues, and of course, to share with colleagues best practices for your daily work. We hope you will be able to attend our 2015 Conference. Better yet, why not expand your involvement in MSACROA at this year s conference? In the coming weeks, we will be sending calls for workshop proposals and for volunteer opportunities to get involved. Have you gone through an ERP or data conversion that changed how your office interacts with other offices? Has your office become part of a One-Stop Model or Welcome Center? Have you been part of an outcomes assessment or accreditation team? Share your expertise on these and other topics! You don t have to be the primary presenter; many presenters serve on an expert panel or roundtable discussion. If you would like to get involved and need suggestions for session topics or ideas on where to start, I encourage you to contact me or a member of the Executive Committee. So, mark your calendars for November 30, 2015 to December 2, 2015 at Dover Downs Hotel and Casino. Also, be sure to check MSACROA.ORG for the latest news about the conference. See you in Dover! Richard Sunday MSACROA President-Elect Dean of Admissions, LIU Brooklyn

4 Message from the Past-President Greetings, friends and colleagues. As we welcome Spring, I am reminded of our marvelous conference in Niagara Falls, NY in early November. The sun shined, the leaves were still turning, and we dodged the snow before and after the conference. (So glad we moved the conference from our normal time!) To those of you who attended, I am so glad that you came. We had a great conference thanks to Patti Mathay and the rest of the Program Committee. Peter Falk and Julie Washington joined the executive board (Tom Mantoni, Melissa Lenhart Young, Richard Sunday, Michael Maysilles, Ian White, Luke Phillips, Lisle Henderson, and Helena Minerva) in recruiting and presenting a truly diverse group of sessions. We had 4 workshops, 47 sessions, and 11 cracker barrels and roundtables. We enjoyed a charming presentation by Walt Stasinski reminding us all to have FUN at work. We encourage you to continue accessing the conference sessions and use the online materials as a resource throughout the year. A few years ago, we decided to try moving the date of the conference earlier in the month. This worked out great for the 2014 conference since the area got slammed with snow at our regular conference time. However, next year we ll be back at our normal time just after Thanksgiving weekend, Monday, November 30 Wednesday, December 2, 2015, and down in the South at the Dover Downs Hotel & Casino, in Dover, DE. We encourage you to join us and bring a colleague! In other activities, Luke Philips spent the year designing our new website: please visit us and see the streamlined site. We have been working on ways to increase the committees membership for the upcoming conference and to better align our board with the caucuses of AACRAO. By the way, WE RE HOSTING AACRAO in Baltimore, Maryland, April 12-15, We do hope you will attend AACRAO and join us for dinner at the Kona Grill on Tuesday, April 14 at 6:30 PM. MSACROA has been an amazing experience and I m very thankful for the people I ve met and learned from and continue to grow with. I hope that you find a home here as well. Fran Burman MSACROA Past-President Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

5 MSACROA 84th Meeting in Photos

6 2015 Executive Committee President Patricia Mathay University of Pittsburgh President-Elect Richard Sunday Long Island University Immediate Past President Frances S. Burman Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Secretary Melissa M. Lenhart Young DeSales University Treasurer Helena F. Minerva Fashion Institute of Technology Vice President for Admissions and Enrollment Services Anne Daly Cumberland County College Vice President for Communications Michael E. Maysilles New Jersey Institute of Technology Vice President for Information Technology Ian K. White Caldwell University Vice President for Professional Development Luke Phillips Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Vice President for Registration and Records Management Lisle Henderson Pratt Institute

7 Federal Regulations Over the next year, higher education will see many new regulations as well as new interpretations of current regulations. Here are a few things to watch: Department of Education has ended their contract with the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) In November, George Levathes, Vice President, Operations, NSC, communicated via to participating institutions. NSC will no longer provide weekly updates to the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) for Direct Loan borrowers. Rather, the FSA believes that the SSCR process provides sufficient enrollment status notification for the borrowers. On March 12, FSA released a letter addressing schools who have indicated they are seeing an increased number of requests for paper deferment forms as a result of this ended contract. The letter can be viewed by clicking here. Please read this document to ensure your office and institution remain in compliance with the reporting requirements. The Task Force on Federal Regulation of Higher Education U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Barbara Mikulski (D- MD), Richard Burr (R-NC), and Michael Bennet (D-CO) created this task force in Fall 2013 to examine higher education regulations and to report on tactics to ease regulatory burden and costs associated. The final report was released on February 13, 2015 and contains a number of recommendations for streamlining and simplifying federal regulations. The report can be found on the American Council of Education website, click here. Department of Education Proposed Regulations for Teacher Preparation Programs On December 3, 2014, the Department of Education published proposed regulations for Teacher Preparation Program and asked for comments to be submitted by February 2, The proposed regulations can be found in the Federal Register. The Department of Education would establish a structure for assessing teacher preparation performance. States would be required to identify low-performing programs, take action against at-risk programs, define consequences of losing State funding and approval, and establish ways to reverse those consequences. Many higher education associations submitted comments expressing serious concern over proposed regulations. Final regulations are expected to be published in Michael E. Maysilles Vice President for Communications University Registrar, New Jersey Institute of Technology

8 Website Updates NEW WEBSITE DESIGN Vice President of Professional Development, Luke Phillips, has unveiled a new website design for msacroa.org. Our old site was based on outdated technology and the template was no longer supported by our Internet Service Provider. We needed to find a solution that would allow for faster updates, cleaner page designs, and more features for our members, said Phillips, and we were fortunate that this solution is provided by our Internet Service Provider at no additional cost to MSACROA! Please visit our website at msacroa.org and check out what the website has to offer: Association history, the Constitution and By-Laws, and a live Twitter feed to name a few. Future plans include a searchable member directory and a members only forum. Please feel free to reach out to VP Phillips at luke.phillips@mssm.edu to offer any suggestions for the site. LOOKING FOR A JOB? LOOKING TO HIRE STAFF? Be sure to visit the MSACROA Jobs Page. We list the latest job postings upon request for the benefit of our members. Recent postings include: Senior Systems Analyst - University of Pittsburgh - 03/05/15 VP and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid - Franklin Marshall College - 02/18/15 Associate Registrar - Keuka College - 02/03/15 Assistant Registrar Data Manager - Drew University - 01/27/15 Director General Education - University at Buffalo - 01/22/15 Data System Specialist - Salus University - 01/21/15

9 Save the Date 2015 MSACROA Conference Dover Downs Hotel Monday, November 30 th Wednesday, December 2 Mark your calendars now and be on the lookout for additional information in the coming months! To view take a virtual tour of the facility click this link:

10 MSACROA Membership If you haven t renewed your membership for the 2015 calendar year it is not too late. Membership registration for the 2015 calendar year is still open. We invite you to join or renew your membership today. Active membership in MSACROA has the following benefits: Voting rights on business of the Association Discount rate at the annual conference Contact information listed on the MSACROA website directory Associate updates Opportunity to serve as officers and on committees of the association MSACROA, founded in 1930, is the oldest of the regional groups of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Offices (AACRAO). MSACROA is committed to the professional development of its members through a collegial exchange of knowledge and professional relationships. To renew your membership logon to and click on the link for Membership Application/Renewal. Membership dues are $45 per individual and are based on a calendar year, there is no limit on the number of individual members per institution. Upon completion of the registration process an invoice will be generated that can be mailed with your dues payment. We also accept Visa and Master Card. Be sure to update your contact information during the registration process. Please note that the last day to register for the 2015 membership is August 1, Payment must be received by August 31, 2015 in order to be eligible for the member rate for our 2015 conference. Also note that membership is not transferable.