Scholarships, Fellowships and Financial Aid Committee
November 22, 2010
Regular Members in Attendance: Sarah Colby, Liza Wieland, Qun Lu, Jonathan Dembo
Ex-officio Members in Attendance: John Fletcher, Kevin Baxter, Cal Christian, Judy Wagner, Dillon Godley
Others in Attendance: Lori Lee
Members Absent: Alice Feret, Xiaoping Pan
Person Presiding: Sarah Colby
Sarah Colby called the meeting to order at 11:00 A.M in Rawl Annex 142.
Agenda Item 1:
Approval of Minutes: The minutes of
the October 25, 2010 were approved as distributed.
Agenda Item 2: Planning of the Scholarship Awareness meeting: At the October 25th meeting the Committee decided (after listening to the presentations by Julie Poorman, Maureen Devine and Kevin Baxter) that there should be an open presentation/workshop offered by the Committee and organized and prepared by Julie Poorman with the Office of Financial Aid for all University faculty and staff involved in the awarding of scholarships on the ECU campus (both the East and West campuses).
The idea is that there are many different individuals across campus that are involved in the awarding of scholarships (both to undergraduates and graduates) and most may not be aware of the deadlines and procedures that must be followed. There are several initiatives that are in the works including a comprehensive award letter and a searchable scholarship database with a dedicated web page detailing all scholarships offered across the campus in every College and every Department. The comprehensive award letter is currently being studied, but one problem that arises is that the Office of Financial Aid doesn’t receive scholarship information from the departments in a timely manner, yet the departments may not be sure that this is necessary. Additionally, John Fletcher (Associate Provost for Enrollment Services) is coordinating a consolidated online location for all scholarships within the next few months and a searchable database with select criteria somewhere down-the-road.
Agenda Item 3: Who to Invite to Workshop and When: The date of the workshop will be scheduled for mid-January. John Fletcher (working with Julie Poorman) will find an appropriate date, time and venue. One option is to hold it at the time of our next meeting which is 11:00 a.m. on January 19th. While this may be a difficult time for a room, the session could be at 9:00 which may allow for more faculty to attend.
The second item was to determine who to invite and the committee determined that for the first workshop we would not invite the entire campus faculty. The concern was someone may come with general scholarship questions and at this point we do not have all of the answers. It was determined that this general presentation would be better served to happen later in the spring. This 1st meeting will be just for those involved in their College or Departmental scholarship committees that award scholarships.
Once a date, time and location were determined either Alice Feret or Sarah Colby would send a letter to Deans and Department Chairs requesting a list of who coordinates (and all who are involved) in the awarding of scholarships in their College/Department (for instance, in the College of Business Anne Fisher coordinates all scholarships and there are 5 faculty members on the committee). Then each individual will be asked to attend the hour long workshop. Microsoft Outlook meeting request will be used to determine the headcount of who will attend.
Agenda Item 4: Possible revisions to the committee charge: The Committee determined that the charge of the committee appears to be appropriate and does allow the committee to serve more in an oversight role of the entire scholarship and financial aid process within the entire University Community. The committee believes that the current agenda for the spring is a great start to having this Committee contribute to the entire scholarship process for all involved.
The committee adjourned at 11:50 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Cal Christian
Secretary (for a day!), Student Scholarships, Fellowships and Financial Aid Committee