A Do-able thing
by Carmen Panlilio, Director, Office of Financial Aid, New Jersey City University

(Since the phrase “A good thing” is no longer such a good thing thanks to Martha Stewart’s conviction, I propose using this instead: A DO-ABLE thing.)

We’ve always heard about how WE are the experts, of how WE are the people who put our legislative leaders in office, of how WE are their constituents. Even as we KNOW it, it is still not as real as when we BELIEVE it.

The weekend of March 7 - 9 made it believable for me. I, along with Dennis Levy, was fortunate enough to have participated in the NJASFAA Leadership Conference. Part of this conference included planned visits to the Hill as well as a few hours of discussions on how to get ready for it. To prepare for the visits, we had to contact the offices of the congressmen and senators we intended to see. That involved faxing scheduling requests, as well as phone calls to and from these offices weeks before the conference and visits.

The weekend of March 7, I re-learned and came to believe that we have three distinct advantages as practicing financial aid administrators:

1. We “live” financial aid – day in, day out. We know it, we speak it, and some of us even dream it. We understand it, and even more important, we understand how it affects our students.
   
   
2. We're not professional lobbyists – and we sound it! We talk about things we feel passionately about, and it does not necessarily sound as polished as we would like. We may even sound nerdy at times, but the issues are real to us. And this is probably pretty refreshing for those we speak with. We don’t need to know all the nuances of how laws are made, nor do we need to know the legislative buzz words; I would leave that to the professionals and the experts. Instead, I would focus on the one or two issues that really surface in our day to day experiences, like loan limits, or how a student working in the summer months gets penalized for earning those funds when it comes to needs analysis for the following year.
   
   
3. We are messengers. Not only do we bring the issues and concerns of our students and families to Congress, we bring back from our visits and conversations their attitudes, their level of interest, and their support… or lack of. These are shared, in one way or another, with our students and their families. We all get to learn who is supportive of making the investment in the country’s future through education.

All three things we already have – and the proof is in what we are all doing in NJASFAA and in what we do everyday when we go to work. So pick up the phone to speak to someone in your representatives’ offices, or stop in to visit, or speak up at a Town Hall meeting – these are all definitely DO-ABLE things.