2Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

Meet Your Presenters ...........................................................................3

Schedule ..............................................................................................4

Registration Information .......................................................................8

Table of Contents

3Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

Mark J. Mitchell, Vice President, SSS By NAIS Mark J. Mitchell is the vice president for School and Student Services By NAIS. With over 20 years in the financial aid arena, Mark oversees knowledge creation initiatives for SSS, providing support to more than 2,100 K-12 schools and other organizations through workshops, seminars, and the development of web-based resource materials. Mark is a frequent presenter on tuition pricing, affordability, and financial aid policy and practices.

He has also authored several articles and book chapters on education financing and financial aid strategies. Prior to NAIS, Mark worked in higher education financial aid at Northwestern University, Lake Forest College, and Access Group, Inc, a firm specializing in graduate student education financing. He is a graduate of Moorestown Friends School (New Jersey), where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees.

Mike Szydlowski, Director of Financial Aid, Woodberry Forest School (VA)Mike Szydlowski is the Financial Aid Director at Woodberry Forest School, he also owns and operates Tax Preparation & Planning, an income tax and tax planning business since 1986. Mike works with NAIS to help prepare case studies for fall workshops and annotates Tax*Assist each year and offers various half and full day tax workshops for Financial Aid Professionals.

Meet Your Presenters

4Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

Pre-Work - Know Your Financial Aid DataThis assignment allows you to consider the best data to gather to profile, highlight, and discuss the landscape of your own financial aid trends and realities with key school constituencies, from the board to your financial aid to committee to parents. You will be asked to find, collect, and bring several key pieces of information about your financial aid program over the past five years or more. Once onsite at the workshop, you will gather with peers to share your impressions on what your data suggest about the future of your aid program and highlight what data you would use in presenting key findings and recommendations to your board of trustees. You will leave the workshop with a template for an effective board reporting opportunity.

August 2, 2011

4:00 pm Connecting with New ProfessionalsNot long ago, you were brand new in the financial aid role at your school and didn’t fully know what to expect. This is a unique chance to share your expertise with new professionals as they go through the SSS Institute for New Financial Aid Professionals to help them manage that same anxiety and trepidation you may have felt. What are the best pieces of advice you would offer them as they prepare to start their first or second financial aid season? Help them learn more about what they may not learn in class as they step into their new role.

5:00 pm Networking Reception

2012 Going Beyond the Basics for Mid-Career Financial Aid Professionals

5Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

2012 Going Beyond the Basics for Mid-Career Financial Aid Professionals

August 3, 2012

8:30 am Welcome, IntroductionMark Mitchell, SSS By NAIS

9:15 am Minding Their Business: Reviewing Partnership and S-Corporation Tax Forms Mike Szydlowski, Woodberry Forest School

When you receive a file that includes one or all of these business entities: Sole Proprietorship, Partnership and S Corporation, where should you spend your focus during the reviewing process? In this session, learn how to review various tax forms to make a determination whether a family gets financial aid or not. This session will compare and contrast the different types of business entities using actual cases as examples. You will see how to ‘follow the money’ when analyzing these three types of business entities. At the end of the session, you will know how to:

• Review Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, and S Corporation tax documents appropriately to follow the money.

• Make the required revisions in Comp*Assist Online that shows what financial aid to award to the family. • Respond or follow up with families using sound and clear reasoning and examples.

10:30 am Break

10:45 am Ask the Expert: Answering Your Comp*Assist Online QuestionsMark Mitchell, SSS By NAIS

Ever wondered during the financial aid season if you are using Comp*Assist Online ‘right’? Would you like to ask questions about some aspect of the software and get help on the spot? In this session, get answers and tips to solve the features or components of Comp*Assist Online that are perplexing or unknown to you. Come with and share your own “best tips” based on something you’ve learned that has helped you navigate and manage your student records more efficiently. At the end of the session, you can:

• Use features of the Comp*Assist Online software that previously stumped you and your colleagues.• Apply tips learned during the session and overcome your biggest obstacles.• Share your own solutions with your colleagues who may not take full advantage of what the software

offers.

6Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

August 3, 2012 (continued)

12:00 pm Lunch

1:00 pm Intermediate Case Study Review –Impact of School Policy on Award Decisions

2:00 pm Break

2:15 pm Small Group Discussions – What I learned From My Financial Aid Data Mark Mitchel, SSS By NAIS & Mike Szydlowski, Woodberry Forest School

Knowing how your short- and long-term financial aid trends and realities impact the need for new policies, approaches, and/or resources is a key responsibility for the mid-career financial aid administrators to embrace. Looking at your past to determine how your current aid program is progressing is one critical way to evaluate whether the aid program is accomplishing the goals you want it to achieve. Finding the data, understanding it, and using it to make a case for how the school head and board can support its ongoing evolution are “next level” skills to put into place to begin to shape the aid program, not just manage it. At the end of the session, you will:

• Evaluate your school financial aid data using different lenses. • Determine which critical pieces of data are important to highlight when preparing a presentation. • Utilize the presentation template to report key trends and realities of your aid program with ease and

confidence to your head of school and board of trustees.

3:00 pm Break

2012 Going Beyond the Basics for Mid-Career Financial Aid Professionals

7Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

August 3, 2012

3:15 pm Top Tips for the Best Board Presentations on Financial Aid Mike Szydlowski, Woodberry Forest School

Does preparing a presentation for the board make you nervous? Whether creating a presentation for the head or board, pulling it all together is not as difficult as you may think. In this session, gain examples, suggestions, and directions on how to mine the data, create charts, and produce reports that are easily explained and understood by those who are not as familiar with the financial aid process. At the end of the session, you will:

• Know how and where to mine your data from a variety of resources.• Develop charts and reports for these highlighted data based on the needs of your audience.• Produce, share or deliver reports that are concise and clearly understood by non-financial aid folks.

4:15 pm Wrap Up

4:30 pm Workshop Concludes

2012 Going Beyond the Basics for Mid-Career Financial Aid Professionals

8Workshop for Mid-Career Professionals

Registration fees cover the workshop, as well as meals (breakfasts, lunch, morning and afternoon breaks) and a networking reception.

Payment Information and Deadline: sss.nais.org/go/mcp

Early Bird (Register by June 20) Standard (Register by July 18)$575 $725

Workshop Cancellation PolicyCancellation must be sent in writing to hayden@nais.org and received by July 18 to receive a 50% workshop registration fee refund. No refunds will be given after the standard registration deadline of July 11. However, substituting an attendee for another staff member from the same school is acceptable.

Housing Information

Francis Marion Hotel387 King StreetCharleston, SC 29403(877) 756-2121

Rate: $119 Hotel cut-off: July 11, 2012

To reserve your room at the discounted rate, use the link below or contact the hotel directly at (877) 756-2121 and mention code “NAIS”. With limited rooms available at this discounted rate, please make your reservations early as rooms will go quickly. Housing link: sss.nais.org/go/francismarionhotel

Registration Information