Robert Bode Email & Phone Number

Saint Paul, Mn, Us

River Falls, Wisconsin, United States

Lead the Financial Aid and Military/Veteran's Student Services offices, serving approximately 5000 students and distributing over $40,000,000 in financial aid annually. Oversee a staff of 7 professionals and 3-4 student workers. Major Accomplishments:* Developed all queries and templates in PeopleSoft for a new financial aid offer letter that states the net price and full cost of attendance for students. * Moved up the starting date for financial aid offers to new entering students from March 1 to mid-December. * Revised Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) policy to add a warning period and graduated pace-of-completion standards, significantly reducing the number of students failing to meet SAP in their first semester of enrollment.* Developed all queries and templates in PeopleSoft for a new financial literacy notice which informs students of their loan balances, expected total accrued interest and estimated monthly payments.

Portland, Oregon Area

Provide financial aid office leadership on a short-notice, interim basis for a small, highly-selective private liberal arts college. Oversee the daily operations of the financial aid office and supervise 4 professional staff members. Supervise and sets goals for reviewing the files of continuing students in preparation for making financial aid offers. Manage the budgeting and packaging process for continuing students using the Banner system. Set and meet goals for the distribution of financial aid award notices in concert with the distribution of tuition bills. Review and document procedures and make recommendations for process improvements to the Vice President and Dean of Admissions.

Minneapolis, Mn

Created operational reports for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions users. Developed queries (single and connected) for financial aid, admissions and enrollment modules according to design specifications. Formated queries for output using BI (XML) Publisher. Created report projects in Application Designer for migration through development, testing and production environments. Conducted initial testing and tracked testing results in HP Application Lifecycle Management system. Coordinated defect resolution for the Reporting and Data Management (RDM) Team. Drafted help documentation for PeopleSoft reports developed by RDM team. Supported the development and publication of dashboards, reports and analyses in OBIEE in a decentralized development environment. Conducted alpha and beta tests on BI reports and recommended changes prior to migration to production. Examples of reports created: *Identifying unofficial withdrawals for returning financial aid *Graduate admission applications by program and individual *Advisees with current or future registration holds (as related content)

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Conducted analysis of business processes in support of the Graduate Education Transition project. Reviewed documentation and met with operations staff to create written procedures and process maps for current work processes. Analysed current processes using Lean and similar business process improvement concepts and tools. Identified bottlenecks and non-valued added work time. Researched and proposed improvements to processes that leveraged existing software (PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, Workflow Gen web form automation, etc.) Worked with operations staff to implement improvement strategies.Major Achievements *Led analysis and training activities to extend access to graduate student documents through the ImageNow system *Managed the development and deployment of the Change of Advisor on-line workflow form. *Conducted numerous process analysis sessions to map current states for graduate student progress to degree, application for doctoral fellowships, international student admission and other graduate school business processes *Developed a document/information flow model which established a working paradigm for improving transactions between graduate students and the Graduate School

Colorado Springs, Colorado Area

Led the Financial Aid, Student Employment and Scholarship Services operations serving over 5,700 students and providing over $55 million in financial assistance annually for a mid-size public university. Supervised direct reports overseeing Scholarships, Student Employment, Financial Aid Counseling, Compliance and IT/Operations. Managed a budget of approximately $900,000 and 16 staff plus 15-20 student employees. Collaborated with Student Recruitment, Pre-Collegiate and other programs to support student recruitment and marketing activities. Served on various University teams for improving student enrollment management.Major Achievements: *Successfully met all major milestones for PeopleSoft/Financial Aid implementation for 2010-11 *Conducted a process improvement retreat generating 25 process-improvement proposals for 2011-12 *Initiated, prepared and directed a recruiting campaign to applicants listing target competitors on their financial aid applications *Directed a calling campaign to students with outstanding account balances netting over $1M in reduced accounts receivables

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Led the offices of Student Financial Aid and Gateway Student Services. Directed a staff of 10 professional and support staff, 12-15 student assistants and manage a budget of over $800,000. Advised the Vice President of Student Affairs as a member of the Student Affairs Leadership Team. Maintained accountability for the disbursement of approximately $40,000,000 from all major financial aid programs to over 5,000 financial aid recipients annually. Established policies and procedures, monitored compliance, completed required reports and tracked departmental effectiveness. Coordinated audits with Internal Auditing, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education. Managed the delivery of customer service and communications to current and prospective students. Ensured information system integrity and efficient data production operations. Served on Deans and Directors Council, Strategic Enrollment Management committee and chaired the University Scholarship committee. Served on the development team for the financial aid module of the Integrated Statewide Record System.Major Achievements *Proposed and executed a plan that reduced audit liabilities from $1.3 M to $0 in three years*Led restoration to full participation in Federal student aid programs by 2009 *Worked with the Special Assistant to the Provost to draft and guide through the shared governance review process a unified academic and financial aid satisfactory academic progress policy *Worked with Vice Provost, Registrar and IT staff to design an attendance verification process *Created an Access data base that extracts and aggregates information from a data warehouse using SQL to identify, track, commumicate and report returns of federal and state funds for students who failed to complete terms *Developed an Access data base that used SQL to query, aggregate, calculate and FTP electronic files to create book vouchers in the bookstore point of sale system

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Directed the delivery of over $22,000,000 in financial aid to 2000 students in 50 graduate and professional programs. Determined budgets, packaging policies and disbursement schedules for graduate student aid. Developed a Satisfactory Academic Progress policy for multiple graduate programs. Supervised and collaborated with staff to provide counseling services for multiple campuses. Worked closely with graduate Deans and staff to insure high-quality services for graduate students in support of program recruitment efforts. Established a Minneapolis campus office in coordination with the Life/Work Counseling Center.Major AcievementsSuccessfully secured financial aid eligibility for the new School of Law in 2001Established a data collection and evaluation process to insure compliance for non-term programsExpanded and improved web content for prospective, current and graduating studentsCreated annual communication plans and expanded policies and procedures documentation

Minneapolis, Mn

Member of the Board of Directors and corporate officer for a non-profit grant-making organization that supports the adoption of African-American children. Performed all accounting functions. Completed IRS 990 filing and maintained compliance with state Attorney General regulations.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Met with prospective students and parents to discuss college education opportunities and financial aid availability for students. Managed the financial aid module of the CARS Student Information System. Provided ad hoc reports and statistical analysis for both Admissions and Financial Aid offices. Increased overall office productivity by implementing previously unused capabilities of the CARS system.

St. Paul, Mn

Supervised a team of 12 telephone customer service representatives for a national student loan lender. Monitored, evaluated and coached team members to improve service to customers. Conducted performance appraisals and salary reviews. Set, reviewed and tracked performance standards. Handled and resolved complex customer complaints.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Promoted student loan products for Law and MBA students to financial aid administrators in person, by telephone and through seminars for a subsidiary of Sallie Mae. Conducted research, analyzed market data and recomended strategies for increased private loan profitability through effective market segmentation. Represented HEMAR at regional and national financial aid conferences. Wrote and coordinated publication of marketing materials including application packets, brochures, booklets, newsletters and a video script. Conducted national training workshops for student aid professionals.

Tacoma, Wa

Managed the daily operations of the School of Law Financial Aid Office serving approximately 700 students. Managed student loans, work-study and institutional scholarship funding. Supervised 1.5 FTE staff and 3-5 work study students.

Seattle, Wa

Met with students and families to explore options for paying for college. Conducted needs analysis and packaged student awards. Managed work study employment programs. Created brochures using desktop publishing software.

Mba, Marketing Management

Activities and Societies: My capstone project was an original case study and analysis of the competitive strategy behind the University.

Ba, English And American Literature

Studied English and American literature. Authored two projects on the works of Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Diploma, Humanities

Three years of Humanities study (magnet program concentration.) Drama club, swim team.