Despite the increasingly busy nature of our offices, the Committee Co-Chairs, Executive Council members, and committee volunteers have continued to work very hard for MASFAA, and I continue to be proud of their many accomplishments.

Here’s what our MASFAA committees have been up to over the past couple of months:

• The Archives Committee working on the collection of Association-related information, including minutes, photographs, newsletters and memorabilia, dating back to the Association’s inception in 1969. If you would like to donate any of these items to the MASFAA archives, please contact Shawn Morrissey.
  
• The College Goal Sunday Committee has already begun planning for our 2008 event! Statistics from this year’s event will be available soon.

• The Committee to Enhance Ethnic Diversity (CEED) is planning a lecture by Dr. Peter Kiang on June 12th at Northeastern University. Stay tuned for more details! The Committee now has a library from which members can borrow books related to diversity. For more information on the books contained in the library, and how to borrow a book you might be interested in, please go to to this page.

• The Conference Committee will be hosting next year’s Annual Fall Conference November 7th-9th at the Newton Marriott in Newton, MA. Save the date!

• The Early Awareness Committee is working on their annual Journey to College event, an opportunity for middle schools to partner with local colleges or universities to create programs that encourage young students to make higher education a primary goal. This program will take place on June 8th at Assumption College. The Committee will be offering three $200 scholarships to new early awareness programs that are created as a result of this program. The Committee’s new publication for middle school students, Jump Start Your College Savings, will be available soon.

• The Government Relations Committee has been hard at work keeping the membership informed about the student loan inducement investigations and the new legislation being introduced in the Senate and the House. The Committee is planning a session this spring for state legislators on the topic of preferred lender lists.
  
• The Graduate and Professional Concerns Committee will be holding a spring Graduate Symposium on May 8th at the Boston University School of Management.

• The Membership Committee has been hard at work renewing memberships, soliciting new members, and making sure that you can search the database for colleagues who are current MASFAA members. For the first time ever in MASFAA’s history, we have reached 907 paid members!!! Watch your e-mail for information on how to renew your membership for the 07-08 academic year.

• The Newsletter Committee continues to publish our fabulous MASFAA Newsletter in its new online format. We encourage all members to submit items for publication.

• The Professional Development and Training Committee held the first of two leadership trainings for our Emerging Leaders nominees on March 5th at Wellesley College. The training was very well received by all in attendance. The second training will take place on May 22nd at Wellesley College. The Committee is currently working on the Novice Workshop, which will be held in June

• The Public Relations Committee will host its Worcester networking event at the Brew City Grill and Brew House on May 3rd, from 5-7 p.m. The votes are in! The Final Fling will be held at Fenway Park on June 27th. Stay tuned for more details and make sure to save the date!

• The Technology Committee has been working hard to update and enhance the MASFAA website on a monthly basis. If there is something you would like to see that isn’t currently on our website, please let us know!

I am very excited about the MASFAA events still to come this year. Feel free to contact me at savery@brandeis.edu or (781) 736-3706 with your input, suggestions, comments and concerns!