As a person nearing the end of her second – and final! – term as a member of the Financial Aid Product Advisory Group (FA-PAG) I ask that you bear with me while I reflect on why I have found participation such a valuable experience and why DePaul University has supported me in this. I hope these musings provide that final motivation to nominate themselves or someone else for the FA-PAG.
In financial aid most of our work is of a tactical nature. Every day we work to get awards made, loans processed, aid disbursed, students and parents calmed; all while maintaining compliance with institutional and governmental regulations. Participation on the Financial Aid Product Advisory Group has given me the opportunity to think strategically, looking further out than just the next set of regulations. During the Advisory Group Summit all members meet as a whole, in smaller cross-Advisory Group, and with our functional area’s Oracle Strategists. During this time we work together collectively and as individual areas to assist Oracle determine the direction of the functionality for all Campus Solutions institutions. I have found this shift in thinking to be very enjoyable and I have attempted to incorporate more of this strategic thinking into the work I do at DePaul.
I have learned more about other functional areas during my terms on the FA-PAG that I would have otherwise. I also believe I have learned these at a quicker rate. The most recent example of this is the work the FA-PAG has been doing on a particular PET item. This has brought us into a relationship with the Academic Advisement PAG. We are hoping to take advantage of functionality delivered for that area to aid financial aid compliance. We all know that financial aid folks are forced to stick our collective noses into other functional areas’ “business” in order to ensure we are distributing student financial aid in a manner that complies with all of the regulations from every level. While I am still just at the start of this particular learning curve, I know just enough to start asking questions of the folks in our Student Records area so that I can understand the functionality better by looking at our own setup and data. Soon I hope to understand just enough more so that with the other FA-PAG members we can turn that learning back around and make this work for everyone.
Not all members of an Advisory Group have their conference fee waived, only the Chair and Track Chair currently have the conference fee waived. This has meant that I have needed to propose a session that would be voted at a high rating for each Alliance conference I have attended so that it would be approved. This has not been a burden for me as I love teaching. In fact, my manager says that I have a “teacher gene.” One of the most satisfying experiences for me is to see understanding dawn in someone’s eyes and presenting sessions at Alliance and Regional conferences has provided this for me in spades! Preparing and presenting sessions also provides me with the opportunity to learn a topic thoroughly as I prepare session slides…and then learn even more during the Q&A at the end of a session.
From a purely personal perspective I have enjoyed meeting what I call “PeopleFriends” among my colleagues who use PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and many of these relationships have developed into steadfast friendships. As a result of one of these friendships I was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of a highly unusual and fabulous opportunity. I was able to travel to South Africa several times to assist some of the institutions there understand how the Financial Aid module could work for them. I had my eyes opened to just how similar the majority of our business processes are, the universality of 18-21 year olds’, and then found myself learning the External Award functionality very quickly because I knew they would need this right away. This was something I had been putting off for some time. Shortly after my return I found that we needed to use External Awards to deal with a particularly knotty issue. I formed some deep friendships among the folks I worked with there that I cherish.
DePaul University has supported me on the FA-PAG and others from our institution who have participated on various Advisory Groups and the HEUG Board for several reasons:
- It can improve your institution’s reputation with Oracle and with other universities. DePaul University serves the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Community and Oracle by providing leadership within various functional areas.
- It allows your institution input to help shape the direction of new functionality delivered by Oracle. As Oracle develops new and improved functionality, they occasionally solicit feedback from the Product Advisory Group members about how their schools would expect the functionality to work. In those instances, DePaul University has been able to gather input from our management teams and pass this along to Oracle.
- It occasionally enables your institution to perform proof of concept and beta testing of new functionality before it is formally released by Oracle. This testing allows DePaul to give feedback on projects in development, and in the case of successful beta testing, enables us to derive an earlier use of the functionality to be delivered.
So, if you are still awake… I hope this helps someone or several folks make their decision to nominate themselves or someone else to run for the Financial Aid Product Advisory Group. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask them. And please DO send your questions to the FA.PS and FA.INTL lists. There are lots of folks on the financial aid list who are or have been members of the FA-PAG.
Cheers!
Jessica Holler
Financial Aid Product Advisory Group
2016 Chair