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Joe Roof is the new Dean of Enrollment Development at Daytona Community College in Daytona, Florida. Joe is a former President of SACRAO and current conference coordinator for MOSIS '99 to be held in Daytona on July 11-14. Joe served as Registrar at Seminole Community College in Sanford, Florida, for 14 years prior to the transfer to DCC.

David "Woody" O'Cain is heading back to South Carolina in October, this time to direct the admissions operations at Furman University. Woody worked in admissions at USC several years ago, and most recently has been Associate Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid at the University of Evansville in Indiana.

Carol Medders, former AACRAO Vice President for Regional Associations and Institutional Issues, has retired from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where she served for virtually all her career. Carol is an Honorary Member of all three associations, ALACRAO, SACRAO, and AACRAO. She is a former President of both Alabama ACRAO and SACRAO, and is one of the few recipients of the Distinguished Service Award from SACRAO.

Jayne Perkins is now the Registrar at University of Southern Mississippi and most recently served in the same capacity at Millsaps College.

Gary Moore was recently promoted Registrar at University of Georgia after a long tenure of service as Associate Registrar there.

Richard Rainsberger is now the Coordinator of Admissions and Records at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Most recently Dick was the Registrar at Christopher Newport University.

Stevens Anderson is leaving as Registrar at Sewanee for a job in Germany. Sewanee is searching for
a Director of Institutional Research/Registrar.

Steve King, former associate director of Admissions at UT-Chattanooga, is new Director of Admissions at Bridgewater State in Massachusetts.

Christine Soverow will be leaving Anna Maria College as the Executive Director of Admission and Enrollment Planning, effective September 25. Christine says she is leaving to be a full-time mom for awhile to her six year old boy and an eight year old girl, "who desperately need their mom back in their lives more than a few hours a day." She hopes to keep her connections in admissions as it is something that "I truly love and have done well with." The contact person from admissions at Anna Maria will be Laurie Peltier, Director of Admission and Financial Aid, her e-mail address is lpeltier@anna-maria.edu

Gordon Stanley, former Director of Admissions at UT-Knoxville is now Director of Admissions at Michigan State.

We are saddened by the news that Robert Checca, Registrar at SUNY-Oswego, had a fatal heart attack this month. Bob recently began as Registrar at Oswego after serving as Registrar at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ. He also was a former Registrar at the University of Scranton and worked at SUNY-Cortland. Those of us who knew Bob remember him as a friendly and sincere person, always willing to help whenever he could. Bob served as Chair of the Graduate and Professional Schools Committee of MSACROA. He was married to Amy Hallenbeck, who may be reached at 366 South 4th Street, Fulton, NY 13069

Financial Aid delivery systems are expected to undergo a revolution in the next four years due to government initiatives like the the establishment of a Performance Based Organization (PBO) in the Department of Education, Project EASI, Direct Loans, and numerous private sector initiatives like ELM Resources, the National Student Loan Clearinghouse, and Common Line. Following the anticipated enactment of the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1998, AACRAO, NASFAA, and HEWI are jointly presenting a conference to address these developments. Particpants will be provided with an in-depth look at developments in student aid delivery. Attendees will hear directly from Department of Education and private sector leaders in implementing 21st century technology into student aid. This one-day seminar will be moderated by Jerry Sullivan, Executive Director of AACRAO, and will take place at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on November 2. To register please contact Higher Education Washington at (202) 842-4989 or hewi96@aol.com

It's time to renew, if you haven't done so

As of September 11, 1998, 1831 institutions have renewed their membership for 1998-99. The AACRAO office is still waiting to receive renewal payments or intent to renew notices from 573 institutions. A final notice will be sent out to these institutions via fax soon.

Our 1998-99 Member Guide is in its pre-production stage. If you belong to one of the 573 institutions that have not submitted a payment or a renewal notice, please contact AACRAO's membership department as soon as possible. AACRAO cannot guarantee the listing of your institution and members in our 1998-99 Member Guide without a renewal payment or intent to renew notice. Please e-mail questions regarding your renewal to: renewal@aacrao.nche.edu

In an effort to make our membership information as accurate as possible, Eric Mosel will be testing all members' e-mail addresses within the next couple of weeks. You do not have to respond to the test message.

Congressional staff have been working to resolve as many reauthorization issues as possible at the staff level. Conferees from the House and are tentatively scheduled to begin meeting on September 15 to resolve final issues. Two further hearings are scheduled in the House on issues related to reauthorization. Rep. Hoekstra, Chair of the Subcommittee, has scheduled a hearing on September 17on the status of the Department of Education's planning for Year 2000. Rep. McKeon, Chair of the Subcommittee, has scheduled a hearing on direct student loan consolidation.

HIGHER EDUCATION ACT CONFERENCE ISSUE - Proposal to limit Pell Grant eligibility to 150% of normal program completion time.

The Washington higher education associations sent a letter to Chairman Goodling, Committee on Education and the Workforce, dated September 2, urging him to vigorously oppose both the provision in the Senate bill to limit Pell Grant eligibility to 150% of the time it normally takes a student to complete a program, and the Administration's proposed substitute, which would institute an eight-year cap on eligibility. The House bill includes no such provision. AACRAO was one of the signatories to that letter. The letter is available on the AACRAO website, http://www.aacrao.com/.

The higher education associations had already communicated their opposition to the Senate proposal in the American Council of Education letter of August 7 on overall higher education community recommendations in the HEA reauthorization, which included sign-ons by 26 higher education associations, including AACRAO. This letter is also available on the AACRAO website. The August 7 letter pointed out that the 150% restriction would be very difficult to implement and would have almost no effect on the number of students participating in the Pell grant program. Further, the community believes that existing satisfactory academic progress standards, coupled with institutions' efforts to lessen time to degree and students' self-interest in progressing toward graduation, adequately address this issue.

The September 2 letter amplifies further that, based on the Department of Education's own data, relatively few Pell Grant recipients would be affected, but the administrative burden on institutions to implement the requirement would be huge. Further, the proposed limitation makes inaccurate assumptions about the behavior of college students. Pell Grant recipients in particular have a strong motivation to complete their studies as quickly as possible; a $3,000 grant for a full-time student is not an incentive to remain dependent on Pell Grants.

If you have any questions regarding the contents of this article, you can contact Pat Smith directly at: patsmith@erols.com

The House and Senate appropriations committees have approved bills for education spending for FY1999, which begins October 1. Since that date is very close, it appears likely that funding for the Department of Education, including student financial assistance, including student financial assistance, will be folded into an"omnibus" government spending bill.

There is no apparent prospect for House floor action, but the Senate committee recommendations may go the the floor this week. The higher education associations, including AACRAO, have sent a letter to the Senate urging passage of the Senate bill, including recommendations for the higher Pell Grant maximum provided by the House, and additional funding in Federal Supp. Educ. Oppot. Grants (FSEOGs) and Perkins loans. Floor passage of the Senate bill with these increases would give Senator Specter more leverage during the negotiations for the "omnibus" government spending bill. See the AACRAO website for the association letter.

Both bills would increase the Pell Grant maximum award, the House to $3,150 and the Senate to $3,100. The Senate would provide slightly higher funding levels than the House for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOGs) and Federal Work Study awards. The House would provide higher funding for the TRIO programs. The Senate would provide funding for three programs zeroed out by the House, namely, Federal Perkins Loans, State Student Incentive Grants (SSIGs), Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, and Byrd Honors Scholarships. Senate funding for Perkins loans, however, would be lower than FY1998 funding.

	FY1998	House FY1999	Senate FY 1999
Pell Grants (individual)	$3,000	$3,150	$3,100
Pell Grants (program total)	7,344,934,000	$7,344,934,000	$8,569,551,000
Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants	$614,000,000	$614,000,000	$619,000,000
Federal Perkins Loans (capital contributions)	$135,000,000	0	$60,000,000
Federal Work Study	$830,000,000	$850,000,000	$900,000,000
State Student Incentive Grants	$25,000,000	0	$36,000,000
Federal TRIO programs	$529,667,000	$600,000,000	$554,667,000
Graduate Assistance in Areas Of National Need	$30,000,000	0	$31,000,000
Byrd Honors Scholarships	$39,288,000	0	$39,288,000

If you have any questions regarding the contents of this article, you can contact Pat Smith directly at: patsmith@erols.com

Louisiana State University will be host to this, the ninth EDI in Education Conference. The conference will be held October 26-28, 1998, at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center in Baton Rouge.

EDUCAUSE is offering campus administrators access to more than two dozen institutional Y2K sites via a Web page that also offers links to the U.S. Department of Education and other related sites. http://www.educause.edu/issues/y2k.html

The American Management Association International (AMA) is offering unlimited access to Leadership Forum Chats until Jan. 1, 1999. This will also give you access to chat rooms of TeamCenter, Finance, HR/OD, Information Management, and Marketing chatrooms. Log on at http://www.amanet.org/fchats

ACT has a web site with dropout rates by type and level of institution. The address is http://www.act.org/news/04-01b98.html

The SACS Commission on Colleges has a webpage on Criteria for Accreditation at http://www.sacs.org It also has phone numbers for the COC staff. From it, you can print copy of the COC publications order form. It has a tentative schedule of the program for the annual meeting, workshops, tours, housing information, registration form, etc. Most importantly, you can check http://www.sacs.org/pub/coc/list.HTM to see if a specific institution is accredited by the Commission.

http://www.collegeways.com has information about a new scholarly journal titled Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. In addition, information about joining an electronic discussion list devoted to retention issues is also available there.

NOVEMBER DATA DISPENSER TO HIGHLIGHT CHARLOTTE

The November Issue of the AACRAO Data Dispenser will be a "printed on paper" issue and it will have much information of value to you. Included will be forms you can submit early to get yourself ready for the AACRAO annual meeting to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina on April 16-22. See

DIGITAL SIGNATURES FOR TRANSCRIPTS?

Recent discussions on Regist-L commented on the negative security aspects of accepting e-mail requests for transcripts, even if a SID and PIN were used. You may be interested in learning that (according to a recent Wall Street Journal article) the Internal Revenue Service has selected VeriSign Inc. for a two-year pilot program to test the use of digital signatures on tax returns filed electronically. If the program is successful, the agency may deploy the technology for wide-scale use in the year 2000. Can registrars be far behind?

Various researchers, including Vanderbilt University's Donna L. Hoffman, are criticizing the recently released Carnegie Mellon University study that suggested that the Internet may be a lonely place, causing depression in many people who used it extensively for e-mail, chat, and similar purposes. Noting that the subjects of the study were not randomly selected (and not matched with a scientific "control" group of people who didn't use the Internet but were otherwise like the people in the study), Hoffman says the CMU research is "not ready for prime time. This is not saying that Internet does not cause depression. Maybe it does -- but this research does not prove that," according to her quote in an article published in the Washington Post on September 7.

According to a previous article in the August 30 issue of the New York Times, a two-year, $1.5-million study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, funded by the National Science Foundation and major technology companies, has concluded that Internet use appears to cause a decline in psychological well-being. A director of the study says, "We are not talking here about the extremes. These were normal adults and their families, and on average, for those who used the Internet most, things got worse." One hour a week of Internet use led on average to an increase of 1% on the depression scale, an increase of 0.04% on the loneliness scale, and a loss of 2.7 members of the subject's social circle (which averaged 66 people). Although the study participants used e-mail, chat rooms, and other social features of the Internet to interact with others, they reported a decline in interaction with their own family members and a reduction in their circles of friends. "Our hypothesis is, there are more cases where you're building shallow relationships [on the Internet], leading to an overall decline in feeling of connection to other people." Since the 169 study participants, all from the Pittsburgh area, were not chosen in a random selection process, it is not clear how the findings apply to the general population.

In the Washington Post article, Hoffmann adds that the CMU finding is hard to believe because it runs "counter to experience, anecdotal evidence, practice and scholarly research."

The Coming Revolution in Student Aid Delivery, November 2, 1998, Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, To register please contact Higher Education Washington at (202) 842-4989 or hewi96@aol.com

SEM VIII, November 8-10, 1998, Aspen, CO

FERPA Workshop, Charlotte NC, November 9, 1998

FERPA Workshop, Albuquerque NM, November 18, 1998

CAUSE98 - "The Networked Academy"
December 8-11, 1998, Seattle, Washington
http://www.cause.org/conference/c98/c98.html

SCRIP-SAFE® & Voice FX® Challenge Grant

As you are aware, AACRAO drew down its reserves to meet its financial obligations. In an attempt to start rebuilding our reserves and getting the Association back on track, two of our concerned corporate members have issued a challenge to all AACRAO members.

SCRIP-SAFE® and Voice FX® have each pledged $5,000 toward the "Rebuild AACRAO" campaign. Receiving the full amount is contingent upon our ability to collect $20,000 from our membership. We will receive $1 for every $2 donated by our members, enabling us to generate $30,000 toward rebuilding our financial infrastructure.

To make your tax-deductible contribution (AACRAO's tax ID # 526-0000-32), please complete the information below along with the amount of your "Rebuild AACRAO" contribution. This is our organization. If you believe in our future, please consider making a personal contribution. We will acknowledge contributors participating in the SCRIP-SAFE®/Voice FX® Challenge in an upcoming issue of the Data Dispenser.

Please return this form with your check or credit card number to AACRAO, Dept. 32, Washington, DC 20055 or fax to (202) 872-8857. This form is also available on Document-on-Request (888) AACRAO, #120.

Name __________________________________________________________

Title ___________________________________________________________

Contribution Amount $______________

Institution/Organization ______________________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________

City __________________________ State ____________ Zip ______________

Country_____________ Telephone _________________ Fax ________________

E-mail address __________________________________

Check payable to AACRAO _______________________

Credit card payment (Visa/MasterCard/American Express):

Amount to charge: $____________

Card # _____________________________ Exp. Date ______________

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