Recently, Winston-Salem State University has made a number of changes such as Donald Julian Reaves being named as the new chancellor in February and the completion of Foundation Heights residence hall this fall.
The financial aid office also had a change about a year ago when Dr. Raymond Solomon became the new financial aid director. Solomon, who has 13 years of experience working with financial aid, suggests changes need to be made in the financial aid office, changes such as adding new space and more staff.
The other change that is in review by Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Dr. Melody C. Pierce, Solomon and other administrators is the timing of financial aid refunds. There has been a preliminary meeting concerning whether or not to change the disbursement of refunds from the first day of school to the date when students can drop and add classes.
According to Pierce and Solomon, students have been known to apply for college just to get the refund, and once the refund is disbursed the students don’t come back to class. It is also a burden on the financial aid office when students receive their refunds before the days to drop and add classes. The reason being that checks for refunds are written on Monday but not disbursed until Friday and between that time students can add or drop classes. The financial aid department has to manually check all refunds before the drop and add deadline.
For example, if a check is disbursed Monday and a student drops a class, that student will end up receiving more than what he or she was supposed to, and if a student adds a class, that student will be underpaid. This demands a manual process that is “extremely cumbersome and burdensome Solomon said.
Ten years ago the Thompson Center was built for several offices and one of them being the financial aid office. Back then there were approximately 2,500 students at WSSU, and now the college is growing with approximately 6,000.
Solomon requested for money in the budget for more staff and more space. Pierce said he will be receiving the extra space he needs for the financial aid office. However as far as funds, she said funding is not available at this time for the extra staff.
WSSU is state funded so in order for the financial aid department to receive the finances it needs to hire more staff, the request for extra money has to be a year in advance.
Meanwhile, the financial aid office will expand to the conference room across the hall. In the near future, after the undergraduate admissions suite of offices is redesigned, the financial aid offices will be redesigned. This will enable financial aid staff to have private offices for confidentiality reasons.
Vacant positions in the financial aid office are being filled slowly. The financial aid office has hired four temporary staff positions.