Department seeks feedback from
By Anna Walters
A Financial Aid student advisory committee met last Friday to discuss issues and concerns related to the department.
The committee was suggested by Paul Krull, Financial Aid director, as a means to discern and address problems students may be having with Financial Aid processes. Krull also hopes that the group will help foster an improved relationship between the department and the students it serves.
To Krull's knowledge, this is the first ever student-based task force to Financial Aid, and Krull intends to continue committee meetings as long as he is director of the department.
Krull asked David Gregg, ASUP president, to select approximately seven students from diverse majors and grade levels to sit on the committee. Gregg found six willing individuals and five showed up for the meeting.
"It's always good to have a perception from the customers you're serving," Krull said as he addressed the seven student committee members, mostly upperclassmen. "I asked David Gregg to come up with a group of individuals who would be willing to sit down and talk about Financial Aid issues, the good, the bad and the ugly."
Krull calls the committee a "department PR plan."
During the meeting on Monday, Krull briefed the group on Financial Aid processes and then let them take the reigns. Students talked about problems they or other students they knew had been having with Financial Aid. Krull also asked students for input.
"How do we get students to read? Frankly that's the biggest challenge I have," Krull said.
Senior Angela Klaassen, a member of the committee, thinks that the task force is evidence of Financial Aid's initiative.
"Financial Aid is such a daunting thing for students and it's important for them to have a voice in how it's run.
"I think it shows that they have an interest in getting student input, and that's important because Financial Aid is so closely tied to the students," Klaassen said.
