John Bowie, Ms, Faac® Email & Phone Number

Auburn, Me, Us

Auburn, Maine, United States

I currently oversee all student financial aid, student billing, collections, and veteran benefit processing.I recently led the merger of the Financial Aid and Student Billing departments into a five-person Student Financial Services unit that provides a blended, one-stop approach for students in all areas of student finance. I have successfully prepared our department and the wider college community for the upcoming 2024-2025 awarding cycle with the multitude of changes to the FAFSA and need analysis, while also serving as a testing and training lead for an upcoming SIS conversion to Anthology Student. I collaborated with our IT department to create custom views that pull real-time data from PowerFAIDS; these views enable the development of reports that display data from both PowerFAIDS and Jenzabar at the same time. Examples of such reports include add-drop, ready for packaging, incomplete for packaging, ready for disbursement, monthly disbursements, Direct Loan and Pell Grant monthly reconciliation, withdrawn students needing R2T4 calculations, and scholarship candidates.I successfully implemented the Maine Free College program, which provides last-dollar tuition and fee scholarships to eligible high school graduates living in Maine, in a seamless fashion integrating two separate student information systems. I converted the entire student financial aid operation to a 100% remote delivery of services model during a 14-month period in 2020-2021.I developed a daily award adjustment and anticipated process through customized reports and queries that provides current financial aid information to the student billing area and allows the College to improve its management of student account balances. I have served as the School Certifying Official for veteran education benefits since arriving in 2009, eliminating paper processing and using my skills with SQL to develop a rapid certification and enrollment monitoring system.

Supervised a nine-person, two-campus department responsible for the timely and accurate processing and disbursement of over $120 million in federal, state, institutional and private student aid funds to a population of over 3,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Developed and implemented packaging strategies to maximize use of unfunded discount aid and campus based aid. Worked with the admissions office to develop a matrix-based system of awarding merit-based aid to prospective undergraduate students. Developed weekly report system to monitor institutional and federal aid expenditures to assist projecting expected net tuition revenue. Used Microsoft Access to develop multiple ad-hoc reports to help analyze most office functions, including calculating fund expenditures, discount rates, projected attrition, and satisfactory academic progress compliance. Streamlined and automated procedures for application processing, verification, packaging, loan processing, and return of Title IV funds. Collaborated with bursar on best ways to automate receipt of electronic funds from various loan programs. Trained all staff in best practices for functional implementation of Banner forms and processes.

Malvern, Pa

Functional consultant responsible for training new clients in the implementation of Banner Financial Aid software. This involved conducting operational analysis of existing policies and procedures and developing best practices for use with the new system.Position required expert level knowledge of how Banner interacted with common electronic processes, including FAFSA delivery, packaging, disbursement, letter generation, electronic loan certification, and Pell Grant reporting.

Responsible for review of applications for and packaging of all medical and graduate students.Assisted the Director with developing office policies and procedures. Oversaw FFELP processing for entire student population. Coordinated all entrance and exit interviews. Developed and maintained department web page.

Advised students on all aspects of financial aid approximately twenty hours per week.Assisted full time professional staff in packaging and processing written appeals.Developed department web page.

Fort Campbell, Ky

Master Of Science, Higher Education Administration

Bachelor Of Arts, History

Certificate, Modern Standard Arabic