Salesforce Success Stories: Student Financial Services

 Three months into their journey with Salesforce, Student Financial Services staff are pleased with the way the tool empowers them to better serve students.  

Jenn Bari, who manages the SFS Contact Center, says SFS leaders had been using a homegrown system to track student email cases for many years.  The system worked, but the team needed something that could better connect communication between students and families, and also that could give the team better reporting so they could make data-driven decisions regarding staffing and services, instead of gut instincts. 

"We wanted a system that had all the information in one place," says Bari. 

"We were having to look in five different places for previous conversations and it was hard to get context on what had already been discussed with students.  From a continuous improvement mindset, we knew we needed something that served us better."

Frustrated with their homegrown system's limitations, Bari had asked for alternative recommendations from UVA's Cornerstone Program during one cohort year.  After researching the problem, the Cornerstone team recommended Salesforce as the best solution for SFS.  At that time, the department wasn't able to make the change.  

Fast forward to a few years later, UVAFinance made the decision to adopt Salesforce and suddenly the option was on the table. 

"When Steve Kimata surprised me one week with a meeting about Salesforce, I asked 'does this mean my dream is coming true?'" laughs Bari.  

Scott Adams, Jack Jensen, Meredith Dixon, and Andrew Sallans of UVAFinance's Finance Engagement team got to work with the SFS team, piggybacking on what they'd already done implementing Salesforce with several other departments within Finance.  It took the group two months of intense work and collaboration to hammer out the details and get the new system set up.   

Now, after three months of using Salesforce, Bari and her colleagues can confirm Salesforce is, in fact, the fulfillment of their continuous improvement wish.

"Having our ticketing system and all the associated emails in one place is pretty significant," says Financial Aid Application Analyst John Martin.  

"Salesforce keeps everything visible to us."

Bari agrees, adding that the whole team can more easily communicate with one another and with students and families because of that visibility.  She notes that Salesforce has been especially useful for frontline staff, who, when students contact them, can see everything that has transpired before with the student's case, easily giving them updates and demonstrating coordinated services. 

So are SFS's stakeholders noticing the same positive impact the SFS staff is?  Martin says based on anecdotal evidence so far, the answer is yes, and Bari says that the three months of data they've collected so far will soon illustrate the answer to that question more clearly.  She's excited to report out on the data and tease out the trends. 

One thing they can say for sure so far is that Salesforce has enabled them to quantify their workload in a way they hadn't been able to before.  Bari notes that in their first three months with Salesforce, SFS logged over 10 thousand cases. 

"And that's ten thousand cases that were not manually tracked on a spreadsheet," Martin qualifies. 

Bari says the next steps for SFS beyond their data reporting will be to integrate their phone system into Salesforce for an even more complete, transparent picture of their customer service. 

Updated Expenditure Credit Form

Contributed by Trudy Taylor, SFS

The Cashier’s Office is excited to announce an updated Expenditure Credit form is in progress!

The updated form will be available for departments to submit electronically via DocuSign. Utilizing the form through DocuSign reduces waste (e.g., saving or otherwise signing a PDF) and improves record keeping (you’ll receive a pdf copy) and processing efficiency for the departments and the Cashier’s Office. 

A few highlights include:

• clearly outlined workflow through the document;
• additional PTAO lines for users when needing to deposit to more than one PTAO;
• easily attach supporting documentation;
• automatic email confirmation with completed form as PDF for your records;
• for RDS users: a self-calculating total box and the ability to submit entirely paperless; and
• for non-RDS users (i.e., users sending paper checks to the Cashier’s Office for deposit): you’ll submit the form and then simply print and attach the form with the check for Cashier’s Office to process.

More details to come here in the blog and they will also be published to the SFS webpage. We welcome your questions, additional thoughts, or concerns (sfs-cashiers@virginia.edu).

The new form goes live on March 15th!

So Long, But Not Goodbye: SFS moves out of UVAFinance

On January 1, Student Financial Services officially moved from its long time organizational home in UVAFinance to the Vice Provost for Enrollment. 

SFS joins UREG and Undergraduate Admission in this transition, reporting now to the University’s first-ever VPE, Steve Farmer. 

But don’t worry! There are no plans for SFS to leave Carruthers Hall at this time, so as it becomes safe again for us to work in greater numbers in the building, expect to see your SFS colleagues walking the halls. And given the work SFS does, they will remain close trusted partners with UVAFinance in the years to come.

Ready When Opportunity Knocks

In May of 2018, Student Financial Services went live with a new student payment platform, called UVAPay, to better serve the University’s ~24,000 students. The attraction of the new software, supported through a vendor named Flywire, was how easy it made self-service, its dynamic and intuitive interface, and its ability to flex to meet student needs.

Why is a software switch from over two years ago news today?   Because it’s a reminder of three?important ideas that build our culture of continuous improvement:

1.) Meaningful change takes strong collaboration;

2.) Sometimes opportunities for improvement appear when you don’t expect it, cultivating an open mind and sense of readiness enables clarity to realize and act on opportunities; and

3.) Change isn’t a “one and done” event; it requires continuous improvement.

The SFS team had been investigating new platforms since 2017; they were looking for something to display clear account information, provide ease of payments, and on-demand statements and reports for students and parents, things their current vendor was lacking and slow to update. They found the comprehensive payment solution they were looking for in Flywire in early 2018, but only had a two-month window in which to do the work. Such an implementation would normally have required a minimum of six months.

“We couldn’t have met such a compressed implementation deadline without the buy-in from other teams at UVA, especially Cheyrl Elzey and her team in ITS,” says Isaiah Behnke of SFS. Internal collaboration to get the new software working with SIS and to iron out many more technical details guided the project through its first goal: go-live.

Once implemented, Flywire delivered all that SFS had wanted for students and families: it was easy to view and understand account activity, seamlessly submit payments including an integrated international payment experience, enroll into and modify payment plans according to changing needs, , and easily access and generate reports and tax documents. But the team didn’t stop with one success (large though it was) – they have continued to collaborate with the Flywire team to anticipate and accommodate evolving needs.

Since go-live, SFS has worked with Flywire to modify and expand the semester payment plan to include an international payment method (live for spring 2021 – UVA is one of two large publics to offer this option), deliver a separate and tailored Health Insurance payment plan, and enhance rebalancing capabilities; display pertinent finance holds and messaging; and provide electronic 1098-T tax forms to student and authorized users (previously mailed forms).

Last year, SFS rolled out the IRS 1098-T form using Flywire, which had previously been sent by mail. The team went from physically mailing 20,000 forms each year to mailing only 4 thousand and providing on-demand, electronic access to the tax forms. These improvements resulted in significant efficiencies for students and their authorized users, staff, and financial savings (~$20k).

This year, the system will be enhanced yet again by the inclusion of historical 1098-T forms from previous years.

These continued enhancements are a result of the SFS team working with its customers and suggesting to the software development team at Flywire additional ways to fill needs. Behnke says the SFS team continually suggests modifications based on customer feedback and needs, and those modifications not only help UVA students and families but also other schools who use the software.

In addition to working closely with the Flywire product development team, Behnke serves on their advisory board with representatives from 12 other schools that use the software. His work has helped UVA stay in tune with trends in student financial matters and has allowed him to advocate for additional functionality, including a 1098-T solution (now in production) and a solution for 529 payments.

“It’s exciting because we’re always evolving, and it’s benefitting everyone – our students and families, our team, and even other higher ed institutions,” Behnke says.

This is an especially timely reminder as we head into the Configuration & Prototype phase of FST with our University partners. Working closely together, we can build a financial system that allows us to flex and adjust to changing requirements and situations and keeps us thinking strategically about how to do things better.

___________________________________________________________________________

The switch to Flywire had great results for SFS and UVA students. Want to read more? Visit https://assets.flywire.com/resources/Flywire_UniversityofVirginia_CaseStudy.pdf

Continuous Improvement Bright Spot: SFS Federal Work Study Vouchers

 A key part of continuous improvement culture is "finding the bright spots" -- looking at who has had success making changes and operating differently. Small changes can make a big difference!

The Issue:  Completing the paperwork to hire a student for a Federal Work Study (FWS) position was a pain point for schools and units.  Imaging and reviewing the paperwork was a pain point for Student Financial Services (SFS).  The process involved duplication of effort, manual entry of data, lack of consistency between two systems of record (HR and Financial Aid), manual imaging of thousands of individual submissions, and such “quaint” elements as wet signatures and faxed or emailed forms.  It was a lot of effort for everyone involved, but necessary to make sure both the student and the job were eligible for Federal Work Study.  Often, SFS would receive FWS vouchers that were incomplete or that had incorrect information, which meant team members would have to double back and check with the submitter.  When faxed or emailed, forms could also get lost or sent in unusable file formats.  And because the hiring and voucher-creation processes were entirely independent of one another, and because SFS had no access to the hiring information, there were challenges from a reconciliation standpoint as well.

Click image for a larger view

The Improvement:  The SFS Federal Work-Study team noticed that much of the voucher information was already being entered in Workday as part of the hiring process, yet it had to be re-entered on the FWS voucher in order for SFS to have a copy for federal audit purposes.  What if the information could be pulled directly from Workday to populate the required voucher and job description?

The Solution:  Shuler (then of SFS, now part of the FST team), Hopkins, and others from within SFS (including Ashley Rogers, Beth Steppe, Mary Fields, and Sabrina Whitcomb) worked with the UVAHR Team to make the improvement.  The cross-functional team was able to develop an integration between Workday HCM and ImageNow that transformed the process.  Now for almost all FWS-hire-related functions (Phase I) the submitter provides a few additional data points on an integrated questionnaire; the remaining information is pulled directly from Workday; and the FWS voucher and job description are automatically generated, approved electronically by departmental representatives, and sent to the SFS ImageNow system through a nightly process with no extra labor involved!

The Benefits:  The data submitted with the form is now more reliable, as it is fed directly from Workday hiring information.  Also, since the form is electronic, incomplete forms are a thing of the past due to required fields (fields that also have clearer explanation of the information being sought).  No emailing or faxing is required, and the SFS review process has been streamlined dramatically as a result of standardized formatting, typed vs. hand-written entries, and many fewer opportunities for user error.

The Bottom Line:  Last year 855 Federal Work Study students were hired, resulting in 3,194 imaged pages (submissions are more than one page each, and students often hold more than one position).  Shuler, Hopkins, and their colleagues finished the new process in August (in the midst of a pandemic and distributing CARES Act funding!), just in time for it to be useful for schools and units that were hiring student workers for the fall.  Because continuous improvement is continuous, the next step is creating a similar approach for FWS compensation changes as well as hires – that’s a Phase II enhancement, on the docket for early 2021!

__________________________________________________________________________

A big shout out goes to Janet Turner-Giles and the Talent Flex Team, who provided insights as to end-user and downstream impacts on the HR and departmental side, and especially to senior analyst Maggie Breeden, also of UVAHR, whose Workday programming prowess was instrumental in making the new process operational. Thanks to the SFS Federal Work-Study team and our ImageNow colleagues.  Thank you, all! 😊

 

Got a bright spot to share?  Email the Continuous Improvement team at  uvafinance_ci@virginia.edu   

SFS: Report on Pandemic-Related Funding for UVA Students

 Links in graphic:  

http://uvafinance.blogspot.com/2020/06/service-and-collaboration-student.html

https://sfs.virginia.edu/sfs-operational-updates

Service and Collaboration: Student Financial Services responds to student needs

On March 11, UVA announced that students would not return to Grounds after spring break as part of the University’s overall efforts to quell the spread of Coronavirus. That change, along with a host of other repercussions generated by the pandemic, put many students in difficult, unexpected circumstances.

From the financial difficulties of traveling home, to the need to hastily assemble the tech required to take classes online, to the unanticipated need to pay for rent, food, and other basic necessities while they or their families were suddenly unemployed, the needs were many and widespread.

Even before it became official that students would not be returning to Grounds this spring and that the fallout from the Coronavirus was going to be considerable, Student Financial Services sprang into action.

The team immediately arranged a process to award money to meet students’ most pressing needs. Their priority at first was providing students with funds to get home and to ensure they had the technology required to continue their instruction online.

Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services Steve Kimata is quick to point out that SFS was not alone in its relief efforts. The President’s Office and the Information Technology department worked with SFS to coordinate providing laptops and Wi-Fi access to students. Another group from Student Affairs joined in to help provide relief related to the cost of living, providing money for food or rent.

“We assisted with lots of technology requests,” says Sarah Doran of SFS.

“There were many students who were previously relying on computer labs or using an old laptop that wouldn’t support Zoom, or who live in a place without good Wi-Fi and needed a hotspot, or money for more data,” she says.

Doran also recounts assisting students who were studying abroad get home, arranging relief with medical expenses, providing funds for groceries, and even steering students toward appropriate resources to help them apply for unemployment when necessary.

By the time the Federal Government passed the CARES Act’s Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) in late March, SFS had already awarded approximately $400,000 to around 800 students in need.

The federal funds provided to UVA by HEERF (some $5.8 million) allowed SFS to expand its efforts to help students affected by the pandemic. As that funding began to roll in, SFS reworked its intake process and partnered with Student Affairs to stand up an improved application process using the University’s existing scholarship management tool. Student Affairs committed nearly a dozen staff members to review applications for aid.

As of June 12, UVA has awarded $1.95 million in combined UVA and HEERF funds to approximately 2,000 students, counting those who were helped before the CARES act and those who don’t qualify for CARES that need help anyway.

As Doran notes, to qualify for federal money, students were required to be eligible for federal financial aid (usually in the form of having a current FAFSA on file). For the students who had not completed a FAFSA and who found themselves in a worsened financial position due to the impact of the Coronavirus, this presented a barrier; however, the University has been able to assist those students with University funds.

Although the spring semester has wrapped up, student needs continue to roll in. SFS and Student Affairs will continue awarding federal and University funds to students enrolled in the summer session and those who are looking ahead to fall.

“We’re already starting to see fall technology requests,” says Doran, adding that SFS and its partners across Grounds are here and ready to assist.

What's for dinner? Ask Chef Nick!

During these #stayathome days, many of us are cooking more than usual, and finding that cooking might be a little more interesting than it was before -- partly from the lack of other usual forms of entertainment and more time, and partly because it's an opportunity to have fun with our families. 

Photo Credit: http://www.matthewjphoto.me/

Nick Williams of Student Financial Services is our resident culinary expert; below are a few of the recipes he's shared recently.  Check them out and plan something great for dinner (or breakfast, or brunch, or anytime!). 

WARNING:  Images in the recipes linked below may make your stomach growl!

Chef Nick's Bourbon Brandy Beignets

Pesto Crusted Lamb Pizza

Oven-baked Egg Frittata

Italian-Tex-Mex Tostada

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

Tri-Meat Farmstyle Chili

Student Financial Services welcomes Rylie Carlson

Carlson on a trip to Ireland

Rylie Carlson has joined the SFS team as Assistant Director for Athletic Financial Aid. Carlson comes to UVA from Iowa State University, where she was the Program Coordinator for Athletic Financial Aid. 

Since she was a student employee at the University of Northern Iowa, Carlson has been committed to working with students. She worked all four years of her undergraduate studies in financial aid, and upon graduation in 2011 with a degree in Business Management, she chose financial aid as her career and joined the team at Iowa State.

“I like helping students and families understand their options for paying for college, and finding the choices that work best for them,” Carlson says, adding that she especially enjoys working with first-generation students.

“I feel like I can help them the most,” she says.

Carlson (second from right) and family.

“They’re starting fresh and I can help them from the bottom up, through the entire process.”

At Iowa State, Carlson developed her specialty area of working with student athletes almost by accident.

“The person who was doing it left, and I volunteered to fill in,” she laughs.

Carlson went into learning mode and taught herself the NCAA rules, and she hasn’t looked back since.

On a trip to Colorado

She has found that not only does she help students achieve financial success, but she also enjoys supporting them on the field. She feels it’s important for students to know that she really cares about their success. And, since UVA has a wider breadth of sports than Iowa State had, she’s excited about checking out sports she’s unfamiliar with, like lacrosse and rowing.

In her new role at UVA, Carlson is already pleased with all of the financial resources SFS has at their disposal. When Carlson isn’t working, she enjoys traveling, going to concerts and getting outdoors. She’s looking forward to exploring her new corner of Virginia, checking out the great hiking trails and beautiful wineries. 

“It’s beautiful here,” she says, before citing another benefit of her new position in a new area: “I’m honestly glad to have escaped an early and harsh winter in Iowa. It’s -3 there right now!”

Chicken soup for the student's soul: SFS's student food pantry

Trudy Taylor has worked in Student Financial Services for 20 years. In that time, she’s provided students with a lot of guidance, abundant service, and occasionally, a much-needed snack- - because although UVA and the Charlottesville community provide many resources for students with food insecurity, SFS encounters multiple students each semester who are hungry.

“It’s not just low-income students,” says Taylor.


“College is a life lesson, where many students are learning for the first time about budgeting. Sometimes they just find themselves in a pickle. Usually it’s over the summer and in gap times, when it’s close to the end of term, and their financial aid refunds have run out, and they’re paying higher rent than they can really afford.”

Although there are ample resources on Grounds that students can access for help, Taylor, her colleague Irene Paschall, and others had found themselves retrieving snacks from their cubicles or running across the street to McDonald’s to feed a hungry student. It happened often enough that Taylor and Paschall banded together with their colleagues to establish their own little food pantry for students in need. All of the items in the food pantry are donated.

The SFS staff has developed keen instincts for spotting students in trouble, and they don’t hesitate to ask gentle questions that might reveal food insecurity, and to answer the need with peanut butter, crackers, soup, and other items they have in their stock.

Due to a number of reasons – the possible stigma of walking into a food bank on Grounds, the absence of affiliation with a church, or even lack of transportation to local food pantries – Taylor says some students feel more comfortable talking about the issue with SFS staff, with whom they often have an established relationship.

Paschall explains that it’s all in the conversation: “We’re the money people. They’re coming to us to ask for an emergency loan because maybe they’re having trouble paying their rent. Then you ask them if they have money for food, and when is the last time they ate.”

Paschall says students sometimes try to downplay their need, but that SFS staff often counter their protests by reminding them that it’s their job as a student to function, and they can’t do that without eating.

A hug is often part of the transaction, and a request for the student to come back and let the staff know how they’re doing.

“We want to help them and get them to the finish line,” Paschall says.

“It’s our privilege to get to see them grow into adults and do great things in the world.”

Taylor agrees: “We’re Student Financial Services,” she says.

“Without the students, we wouldn’t be here – we are happy to help them however we can.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Resources for food insecurity on Grounds:

• https://womenscenter.virginia.edu/food-pantry
• https://pantryatuva.org/

Community food pantries: https://www.foodpantries.org/ci/va-charlottesville

If you’d like to donate non-perishable food items to the SFS food pantry, feel free to drop them by the cashier’s window in SFS.

Shout out to the Shout Out board: We only knew about this story because Trudy and Irene’s colleague Nick Williams recognized them on the shout out board – kudos to all of you UVAFinance folks who recognize good work AND provide us with great, inspiring stories!

Student Financial Services Welcomes Maggie Duncan

Maggie Duncan has joined the SFS team as a Payment and Student Account Analyst.  Duncan, who comes to UVA most recently from Wells Fargo Advisors, views her new role as a perfect mix of her training in finance and her love of education.

 Duncan completed her bachelor's degree at Columbia College and earned a Master of Arts degree with an emphasis in Executive Leadership from the Liberty University School of Business this past December.

After working to put herself through undergraduate school, she learned to love minimalism during graduate school, selling anything she didn't need so she could focus on her studies without working.

"I learned that I didn't miss anything I sold," she says, adding that financial freedom and no debt meant that she could spend more time doing things she enjoys.

In her new role, Duncan will put her training and experience, along with her personal journey as a student, to work as she handles deposits, reconciliations, and occasionally helping UVA students with their own financial questions.  

In taking a position at UVA, Duncan continues a family tradition:  her mother had a long career in Opthalmology, and her father has been in Facilities Management for over 20 years.    

Duncan lives in Charlottesville with her husband Derek, a sheriff's deputy for the City, and Tucker, their chocolate lab.  The Duncans enjoy spending time outdoors kayaking and hiking, as well as taking their camper to the beach to enjoy friends and family.  

Continuous Improvement Bright Spot: SFS Parent Plus Loan Process

A key part of continuous improvement culture is "finding the bright spots" -- looking at who has had success making changes and operating differently. Small changes can make a big difference!
________________________________________________________________________________

The Issue:  The application process for a "Parent Plus Loan" is a two-step one:  one step is completed with Student Financial Services, and the other step is done with the federal government.  Out of the nearly 1000 Parent Plus Loans processed by SFS each year, over one-third of applicants weren't completing both steps, causing parent confusion, re-work by SFS staff, and in the worst case, the risk of a financial hold on student accounts.

The Improvement:  Because UVA meets 100% of demonstrated need through AccessUVA, SFS required the separate application that makes Parent Plus loans a two-step process for our families, even though that isn't the case for most schools.  Since we couldn't cut out a part of the process, Jessica Marvin and the SFS loan team worked on simplifying the UVA application.  They also put in place a process that triggers an email reminding parents of the second step in the application process.  

The Solution:  The new application form is half the size of the original (from 3 pages to 1.5).  Additionally, by using Docusign for their form, SFS has eliminated the need for parents to print out the form then fax or email it once it's complete.  The team can also use Docusign to push their form to parents if they do the federal form first, and once parents complete the SFS form, it routes directly into the workflow.

The Benefits:  A shorter, electronic form completed via Docusign is easier for parents and reduces both transmission errors and handwriting/missing signature problems.  Docusign also triggers a reminder to parents to complete the second step of the process.

The Bottom Line:  The Parent Plus Loan process is now simplified and it is much more likely that our families will be successful in submitting their materials the first time around!

________________________________________________________________________

Big shout outs to Jessica Marvin, Iris Roberts, Wendy West, Jeannie Sampson-Giles, and Lloyd Dollins for their role in this project!

Also, putting in a plug for UVAFinance's Lean courses:  This project was Jessica Marvin's Lean project, and she was coached by FOC's Danielle Hancock.  Interested in getting on the Lean goodness?  Check out upcoming Lean course offerings on the FOC site.

Got a bright spot to share? Email bv8h@virginia.edu

News from Student Financial Services

Peer Financial Counseling Returns!

Students who are searching for assistance with their personal finances have a new resource to utilize on Grounds in the Peer Financial Counseling program. This free service launched in February of 2019, and is back for its first full academic year starting on August 27th. 

Peer Financial Counselors will work with a student to help them determine their financial values and priorities, and provide them with ongoing support to stick with the financial plans they make. Appointments can be made by sending an email to PeerFinCounseling@virginia.edu, or by visiting Room 245 of the Georges Center inside Clemons Library from 2-6 p.m., Monday-Thursday. Visit the Peer Financial Counseling website for more information.

Student Financial Services Offers Drop-In Hours

Student Financial Services is pleased to continue offering weekly drop-in hours in Clemons Library as an additional resource to students. 

Beginning on August 27th, students can stop by Room 236 of the Georges Student Center from 2-5 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons and 5-8 p.m. on Wednesday evenings to speak with an SFS representative about their financial aid or student account. No appointments are necessary!

Doing more for our students: Peer Financial Counseling

By Dustin Ciraco

“We could be doing more.”

That simple and decisive thought by Student Financial Services’ Communications Manager Chris Doran many months ago has led to the creation of UVA’s Peer Financial Counseling program, a student-led initiative that officially launched in February.

“Our staff in SFS has always done a wonderful job of working with students to combat their financial concerns as they arise,” said Doran.

Melvin Walker (right), a PFC counselor,
meets with studentMy'kal Lofton (left) 

“But it seemed like there was a missed opportunity for students at the University to involve themselves in their personal finances before reaching the ‘crisis’ stage.”

That notion gave Doran and Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services Steve Kimata the go-ahead to begin searching for sources of outside grant funding to assist with the development of a Financial Wellness Education and Outreach initiative through SFS.

Thanks to generous donations by the Jefferson Trust and UVA Alumnus Tim Ranzetta (founder of Next Gen Personal Finance) given in the spring of 2018, the foundation was finally in place to begin building a program in earnest.

During the summer of 2018, a Steering Committee of eight student volunteers gathered for weekly conference calls with Doran to discuss how to best mold content to fit the needs of current University of Virginia students. Five of those students have remained involved for the entirety of the program’s life cycle and are now fully trained counselors.

“Our first group of counselors was involved in almost every facet of program’s creation, from the specific training areas, to the naming of the program, even the hours that the service would be available,” recalled Doran. 

“It was important to us that this program becomes known as a service for students, by students.”

A major focus of the Peer Financial Counseling program resides in its name – counseling. The counselors receive training on a variety of personal finance topics including budgeting, managing personal credit, student loans, and more, but they do not offer advice.

The service is intended to arm students with the proper tools to make sensible and well-informed decisions about their own personal finances. A Peer Financial Counselor will not tell a student how to invest that $100 they got for their birthday, but rather will build a relationship with them over the course of one or multiple sessions, and help them discover what their financial goals and values are.

The initial class of six counselors has already logged more than 25 one-on-one sessions in the Georges Student Center to date. By the spring of 2020, the Peer Financial Counseling program is slated to have 10 fully trained peer counselors on staff.

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For more information on the Peer Financial Counseling program, visit sfs.virginia.edu/perfi

SFS: Responding to student needs in unusual times

Before the longest government shutdown in American history ended on January 25 this year, many furloughed government employees had experienced financial stress. Unsurprisingly, some of the affected households were families with students at UVA, who were facing tuition bills but not receiving a paycheck.

Over the course of the shutdown, a dozen or so families reached out to Student Financial Services with concerns about payments and worries about the impact of the potential length of the shutdown. On an individual basis, SFS responded quickly, with a situationally-appropriate version of the same message: don't worry; we'll work with you.

"Our contact center staff reassured the affected families that we would be glad to work with them," says Steve Kimata, Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services.

According to Kimata, working with families and students affected by the furlough is a silver lining in a tough situation, but it's also pretty standard stuff for SFS.

Many past instances of disaster have resulted in the SFS team employing a student-focused philosophy while at the same time properly stewarding UVA's financial resources and working hand in hand with UVA leadership and other departments, such as the Office of the Dean of Students.

Kimata can remember working with partner offices across Grounds to extend resources and support to students and families affected by a succession of past hurricanes: Harvey, Sandy, Maria and Iris. In 2005, he recounts, after Hurricane Katrina, UVA welcomed over 100 Virginia students from Tulane who took classes at UVA free of charge for a semester.

"Our first concern in response to Katrina," Kimata says, "was our students from New Orleans who were here at UVA, and right on the heels of that, we were concerned with students from Virginia who were at Tulane." He notes that then-president John Casteen's response to Katrina was considered a bit atypical at the time, but UVA leadership felt it was the right thing to do.

Of course, this sort of response takes coordination of efforts across UVA, but as SFS's Sarah Doran points out, by having student accounts and financial aid located in the same department, SFS is able to avoid a certain amount of passing students back and forth when they have special cases. Because SFS is embedded within central finance, she says, the team has the connections and institutional knowledge they need to make good decisions in each case.

And, Doran says, the team has the trust of the VP of Finance to bring fresh solutions to discussions with their partner offices.

"We have the support from UVA to do this," she adds, "and a response that's coordinated with the entire university. We've always had support from UVA to support our students however they need, get them to graduate, and have productive lives."

Opening Doors of Opportunity for UVA students

UVA is making a promise that Virginia families who earn less than $80,000 a year and have typical assets will be able to send their child to UVA tuition-free.  For Virginia families earning less than $30,000 a year with typical assets, we will cover their child's room and board in addition to their tuition.

This is the first step in a larger and longer project by President Ryan and the Board of Visitors to look at current financial aid packages for both Virginia and out-of-state students.

In his inauguration speech, President Ryan said, “I see a community that opens wide the door to opportunity for first-generation, low- and middle-income students."

“There is more work to be done in this space, there will be more work done in this space, but we might as well get started.”

Steve Kimata, Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services, says that current UVA financial aid essentially meets the commitment laid out by Ryan, but that it's important to make an explicit promise to our low-and-middle-income families.

"Opening doors of opportunity is one of our highest callings as a public university," said Kimata.

Current programs will stay in place.  The promise will be focused on members of the fall 2019 incoming class, but applies to all current undergraduate students as well for aid that will be awarded for the fall of 2019 going forward.  Current undergraduate students will apply for financial aid as normal and be evaluated for eligibility for this promise even if the student has not received financial aid in the past.

The University currently meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need of all undergraduate students and offers admission to students with no consideration of their family financial situation.

Consistent with AccessUVA, the total grants awarded to students will be funded from a variety of sources:  federal, state, endowment, and tuition.  We will meet these new commitments with all grants.  Loans (capped at $1,000 for low-income students and $4,500 for others with demonstrated need) and work-study will continue to be offered to meet other costs of attendance.

Be mindful of student/parent visitors: Dates to avoid the South Parking Lot

Students and their families will be wrapping up orientation activities during July, and will likely make Student Services in Carruthers Hall one of their stops before they head out of town. This means higher-than-usual visitor parking needs in the South Lot.  The peak dates in July are listed below. 

During this time especially, please be mindful not to use the South Parking lot if you are not a permit holder.

Guidelines for visitors during July’s peak visitor parking days:

•   Guests of Carruthers and Michie residents should be directed to park in the North Lot visitor’s spots.
•   If possible, choose to have large meetings with many visitors in another location.
•   Suggest that guests to Carruthers/Michie carpool.
•   Avoid using the South Lot if you are not a permit holder – even short-term parking during these peak times is highly discouraged.

Thank you for helping make our corner of UVA a welcoming place for our new Hoos!

UVA Financial Wellness Program peer counseling service to pilot this fall

SFS's new program aims to alleviate student financial worries.

A budding new peer financial counseling program, spearheaded by Student Financial Services (SFS) and with financial support from both the Jefferson Trust and a UVA alum, will help UVA students learn from their peers how to make better financial choices. The program, funded by a grant from the Jefferson Trust, will have a pilot program in place by the end of the Fall 2018 term.

Students experience stress from a host of sources: classes and grades, work and extra-curricular activities, and, of course, financial responsibilities and looming student debt. Studies have found that financial worries can contribute significantly to students’ overall stress level, as well as their physical and emotional health.

Chris Doran, communications manager in SFS, says the program is part of SFS’s overall continued efforts to help students realize the impact of borrowing on their future. Through outreach and counseling, SFS team members have worked to encourage UVA undergraduates to limit their borrowing of unsubsidized loans and raise awareness of their current indebtedness. The peer counseling program will be another large step in the right direction.

Taking the mystery out of gifts and endowments

Gift & Endowment ImageNow system available now

Nearly 6500 files have been scanned and moved to a new system that can be accessed and searched electronically, providing unprecedented access for schools and units into their own gift and endowment accounts.

In the past, when departments or units had questions about restrictions relating to an endowment or a gift, they’d have to ask Wanda Breeden in investment accounting for help. Then Wanda would get her keys and head down to the Carruthers Hall basement (the “dungeon”) to research the question.

“SFS was only one of many units that called inquiring about gift and endowment accounts. We’d call and ask her for clarification of the endowment’s requirements or the donor’s intent, and she’d have to search the paper files to find the pertinent information. Some files could be several inches thick,” explained Lisa Shuler of Student Financial Services (SFS).

SFS and Admissions: partnering to help early action applicants

Students and families need clarity when making decisions regarding college, and it’s not just academic programs and location that make a difference: it’s the availability of financial aid.

“Families are sitting down and crunching the numbers,” said Kelsey Bowles, Assistant Dean of Admissions at UVA.

“For many, especially in first generation college families and low-income families, the most important factor they consider is whether or not they can afford it,” she said.

Mary Fields of Student Financial Services

Scott Miller, Director of Financial Aid in Student Financial Services, says this is why it is critical for UVA to get financial aid packages to students as soon as possible, and why the financial aid staff in SFS has been hard at work since December review financial aid applications in anticipation of awarding the financial aid packages for thousands of early action students.

The early action process allows students to apply and hear back on an accelerated schedule. UVA’s early action application deadline is November 1, and those applicants receive decisions at the end of January instead of the end of March, when regular admission decisions are made.

“Even though UVA meets 100% of demonstrated need, if students don’t have a clear understanding of their financial aid package, they will choose the school who gave that understanding to them sooner,” Bowles said.