2024-2025 Charles E. Jones Achievement Award

Alyssa Foss

Mount Holyoke College

Charles E. Jones Achievement Award

To recognize the achievements and development of a “new”(3 years or less) financial aid administrator

This is what the nominator, Kate, had to say about our recipient:

As leaders in the aid community, we know how much the success of our offices and of our students relies on the work of our front-line counselors; those members of our team who take the most phone calls, answer the most emails, read the most files, process the most scholarships and very often, hand out the most tissues. They are also frequently the newest and/or least experienced members of our teams. Hiring for these positions is tricky because, let’s be honest, very few of us grow up with the dream of being a financial aid administrator one day, and finding people with the right mix of compassion, creativity, compliance, confidence, and care to take on this work is no mean feat.

In the world of aid, this person is a unicorn. From the time she joined our team a year ago, she has shown up day in and day out with the kind of professionalism, dedication, intuition, and competence that can take years to teach or learn. In a very short time, she has become a favorite counselor to our students, a respected colleague to her peers, a reliable go-to for her supervisor and a trusted ally to her campus partners. Although I am sure there are days when she goes home questioning the choices that led her down this path, to those who see her in this role she makes it seem as though there is no conversation she can’t handle, no caseload she can’t manage, no problem she can’t solve, and no ISIR she can’t process.

In short, this person is the hire we all hope to find and the type of aid administrator that we hope will stay in service to our students and our community for many years to come.

We are happy to award the Charles E. Jones Achievement award to Alyssa Foss from Mount Holyoke College!