My goal is always for the students to be able to balance that financial responsibility with their academic success.

Welcome to Focus, a podcast dedicated to the business of Higher Education. I'm your host, Heather Richmond, and we will be exploring the challenges and opportunities facing today's higher learning institutions. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lisa Mazure, associate vice chancellor for finance and fiscal services at Alamo Colleges District about her journey to improve account services, resulting in student success. Hi Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to talk to you.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Well, that is great. And I know your experience with finance, and higher ed, and TouchNet is very extensive. Before we dive in, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

So I was born and raised in Michigan, I went to Central Michigan University, I earned my bachelor's and subsequently my master's there. I started my career in state government. I had 25 years with the Office of the Auditor General. And then I moved over to higher education and in 2014 I went to Lansing Community College and I was there for seven and a half years as the controller. And in 2022 I came here to Alamo Colleges to serve as the associate vice chancellor for finance and fiscal services.

That's awesome. You know, once you're in higher ed, it sucks you in and you want to keep going, don't you?

It does and it really has been a great career move.

It's awesome, I love the higher ed community for sure. And so now that you're at Alamo Colleges District, can you tell us a little bit about that system and the colleges that you serve?

So the system is made up of five, separate, independently accredited colleges. We have over 69,000 students taking almost 500,000 credit hours, and the institution is known for its excellence in performance and leadership. We are the Malcolm Baldrige Award winners for quality. We are a leader college of distinction for Achieving the Dream, we've won the Aspen Prize. We have HBCU College and all five of our colleges, are designated as a Hispanic serving institution. So quite a diverse set of colleges.

That is awesome. It sounds like a great place to be for sure. As a matter of fact, I'm excited because we're going to be in your backyard for COMTEC next year.

Yes, and we're excited because we'll be able to send more people than we normally do. And more people will get to take advantage of COMTEC and what it has to offer.

That is awesome. So today, I really want to dip into your journey through a couple of institutions, where you've been, and how you've really impacted change across campus, you have this great experience. So let's kind of step back in time at the beginning and talk about when you were at Lansing Community College. So let's just talk about what student finance was like, and what you did when you managed it back then.

So when I came to higher education after 25 years in government, one of the first things I noticed was that our students had to go to all these different systems to interact with the Student Finance Office for their payments, for their refunds. And so, I wanted to consolidate and make it easier on the student so that not only did we as an institution have to deal with so many different systems, but then the students only had one system that they were looking at and working with, to make it easier on their journey.

Absolutely. We talk about simplifying, and so a lot of times what that really means is unifying. And it sounds like you had the same question in terms of why am I making this so difficult?

Yeah, I did, so when I got there, I had a lot to learn. I hadn't been in higher education, but quickly got my feet wet. And so one of the first things I did is look at how do we bring all of these systems together? I went out and found some resources and started putting an RFP together. We already had TouchNet for online payments, so I wanted something that was the same for everything. So I wanted a refund that was going to be able to do the online payments and the marketplace that we already had. Plus add in refunds, payment plans, and cashiering and get it all together, get away from those disparate systems, and at that time, that was the same time that title four was changing some of its refunding. And so our refund provider was not going to be able to service our students any longer with their model of business. And so we did, we released the RFP, we got some responses, we did vendor interviews, and at that time, which would have been back in 2014, TouchNet really was the most advanced company in all of the areas, some of them kind of had their specialty, and were just starting to delve into those other areas. But TouchNet was pretty involved already in everything. And so we had a very large evaluation committee and TouchNet was chosen as the provider to move forward with at that time.

Well, I think too, you think about unifying, you went in for how do we make this easier for our students? But at the end of the day, it really makes it easier for you and your staff too, doesn't it?

It does, because when we are onboarding a new staff member, we're not teaching them three different platforms plus everything else. We're teaching them that platform, and we did have a head start, because we were already a customer of TouchNet. So we had an idea of the interfaces and how things worked. And so that did help. But yeah, besides streamlining for the student, it also made it much easier for the staff.

I bet, so when you did have to change, and in a lot of times, reporting and even pulling some of the administrative pieces, it sounds like you were able to really unify a lot of that too, weren't you?

Right, so because our staff already had TouchNet, they were involved right from the start. They were part of the evaluation of the RFP, and then the onboarding and training and bringing the systems up. They were heavily involved in all of the training and the work that was done to familiarize themselves. But then also, on the back end of all of the different modules that TouchNet has, lots of reporting that can be pulled, canned reports, you can make your own reports, really pretty easily. Even me, as an administrator at the top level, would go in and say I want to see this, and I could pretty easily find the report that I needed to find without having to bug my student finance staff to do that. And of course, when you have all that automation, it really reduces a lot of manual work. And then when you tie that in, so with looking at downloads from Banner school, plus the reports and do some, lookups, and matches, you can really get pretty powerful with what you're looking at. And that was a big part of being able to make this successful, to utilize all those tools that came with the package.

Right, that makes a lot of sense. And so it sounds like for your staff, you simplified their world. But what are some of the game changers that you have for students as well, by being able to have this unified services for them?

The biggest one was they only had to navigate one system. They logged in, and they were in TouchNet, so they could do their refund preference, they could sign up for their payment plan, they could do their online payment. So they weren't having to have three different accounts, three different logins for each of those main services that are front facing to the students. And it also provided us, and we'll get into that a little bit later, but it also provided us with the ability for us to offer them better options on their payment plans.

That's really important too, because like you said, in today's world, all these logins and passwords and you have to change them every 30 days and it has to be at 7000 characters now. Having just one central place to go and one login has to make life so much easier for everybody. And then coupling that with you have to have options today for payments and there's not a one size fits all. So let's talk a little bit now about those payment plans and maybe some of those options that you were able to give students.

So, one of the first ones and the most popular that we implemented was the biweekly payment plan. Students really liked that it spread the payments out, it matched up with a lot of paychecks. And instead of having to come up with one big monthly payment, they were still paying the same but it made them feel like they could manage their balance much easier. We also use what we call the offline payment plan, which really is online and through that payment plans, but it's specific to that student based on what their past due balance is, what we have agreed with them. A lot of times, we would say, if you complete this, and this, and are successful, we'll forgive this part of the balance. And so we would do a lot of that. So we did a lot of what we called offline payment plans. We created specific payment plans for financial aid students. So if they had financial aid, but it wasn't enough to cover their balance. It started later in the semester after financial aid was fully awarded. And then it picked up what that balance was. So for those financial aid students, they weren't having to come up with a down payment and payments early in the semester, they could wait to see what their final financial aid package is, because as students drop and add classes and things, their financial aid goes up and down, depending on cost of attendance, and all that. So that was very helpful for the financial aid students, and just allowing all those different options. We also had options for our veteran students, for our students in the adult resource center, a lot of those that had childcare scholarship, and Perkins money and things like that. So, we really were able to offer a really wide menu of payment plans to varying populations of students. 

That's really great. And it probably helped them to feel like you understood them. I love the biweekly payment plans, because they're like, I can pay you when I get paid, I can't pay you one big lump sum at the beginning of the month, because I don't have all of my money yet. Or knowing that I'm going to nursing school, or I'm a veteran that my program is a little bit different. And so I need to have a really a custom tailored plan. For them, I can see how that was really impactful.

Yep. And one of my biggest things when I came to higher education, my goal is always for my students to be able to balance that financial responsibility with their academic success. And the student, they have to take responsibility, that education costs, but we don't want to be the barrier to that, we want to be able to work with them, and help them. And it's actually funny, I just told the story the other day, because my boss just retired. When I moved to higher education, and that's why it was so impactful for me because I was that student, I was the student who had to take a semester off, work three jobs, get a bunch of money and be able to go back again, I was that struggling student. But I persevered. And I kept going, and I paid all my bills. So I want the students that I can help now to be able to be successful. And even though I'm not in the frontline facing the students, I feel I can have an impact on the students and their success, both financially and academically.

You're absolutely right, I remember as well, waiting for the financial aid, I always said that I ate two times a year that was during refund day, you're at the grocery store when you get your refund check twice a year. So kind of just wrapping up your time at Lansing, what would you say was the biggest impact that you really felt?

I'm going to say it was letting our students have more options. We had a very close relationship with the financial aid office, we were working together on the plans. And I really do feel like we impacted and helped our students.

That's wonderful. So today, now, you've been gone there for a while, you had a lot of lessons that you learned and implemented some great programs and you moved far away to Texas and Alamo Colleges District so that's quite the change.

Yeah, just a mere 1500 miles and in the winter, I very much enjoy the weather. I'm happy where I landed. And was fortunate because I went from a TouchNet banner school to a TouchNet banner school, so it didn't have that learning curve.

Well, that is great. Like you said, at least you had some familiarity. So while you had a couple of systems that you knew it was 2022, and so when you transitioned, we're all coming out of this major disruption from the pandemic. And so what did you see as the major challenges facing Alamo now that you're there?

So when I came, and we continued to have a very large accounts receivable balance. Because of the conditions that were created with COVID, we have not put holds on student accounts since 2020. We were looking at how are we going to start doing that again? And getting back to that balance between financial responsibility and academic success. But what I found was that while they had all the bells and whistles of TouchNet, they had the full suite, they really weren't utilizing them to the extent that they could. So that's where we started looking at what are some immediate changes we can work with? What can we do to change things and once again, my mantra: help the student.

And I think that's probably typical of a lot of software packages that people buy. You maybe use 20% of the functionality. So let's think about that, so now that you have the system, what are some best practices that we're not doing? What are some of those changes that you did do immediately?

So one of the first things that I found out was that if a student had a past due balance, that payment they were making on their payment plan for that semester was not going to that semester, it was going to their past due payment plan amount. And to me, that wasn't right, they were signing up for a payment plan for that term, it should be going to that term. And we need to address the past due balance separately, and work with the students separately. We want them to be able to continue through. There were some roadblocks that we weren't letting students enroll in a payment plan. But if we weren't putting holds on their accounts, why were we stopping them? So we needed to address that they only had two payment plan options. It was very strict, the payments weren't tenable for the students so they would sign up for them, but they would fail out of them most of time, because they didn't do them. And we obviously have expanded those, we continue to work on that expansion. But again, we want to give them options and flexibility. And it's increased enrollments and payment plans, it's increased the success rate of the payment plans, and it's helping our students get their educational goals.

That's wonderful. Yeah, I can see if I'm given two choices, or maybe even an all or nothing. And I feel like well, I don't think either one of those is going to help. And maybe they even go into further debt, potentially on a credit card or a loan where something as simple as giving more payment plan options, could really help the students get what they really need, which is make the payments and succeed.

Right, exactly. That's exactly what we're trying to do.

So when you're looking at the outstanding past due balances, and I totally understand there's no hold, keep going. But now that's put you into a different situation. So what are you considering as you're looking at how to deal with these outstanding past due balances.

So we're going to classify them into different buckets. And we're looking at doing some kind of fresh start program for recent and still enrolled students. We're looking at, if they're really old, and what the balance is, we might just write those off. And then there's going to be that pack of students that we want to do direct outreach to, to see if we can get them into what I call my offline payment plans. There's a term for that Heather, but I don't know what it is. But if we can get them in that and get them working toward it, and again, using that incentive that if you complete this many credits, we will forgive this percentage of the balance, because not only does that help our AR, but it helps them. And our moonshot here at Alamo Colleges is to eliminate poverty through education. And so that's a driving force of Our Board of Trustees and our chancellor. So this is one step that can help them. Because if we can get them their certificate or their degree, or whatever they need, and keep them moving through school, then that goes to that moonshot. And so, we're working on how we're going to address this very large past due balance that's accumulated because of COVID. And we will be resuming holds, once we figure it all out and communicate to the students. But again, because we really are ramping up our use of offline payment plans, resuming holds won't be as much of a penalty to the student.

I really love your positioning of the fresh start. And I think that will help students to also feel not as overwhelmed. I think that's really great positioning. So, this sounds like a lot of change in quite frankly, a short amount of time. So what did you have to do to get that internal buy in? I'm sure there's little education and maybe some proposals.

So, because of the way we're set up, the business office is central here at the district office, but each of the five colleges has a business office with an assistant bursar at it. And so these are things that have been talked about in leadership meetings, and meetings with the bursars, and with IT, of what we can do, and how can we implement this? And I'm always willing to listen for people who have suggestions. You know, one thing that I've always asked for 18 months is, why do we do it this way? And if there's a good reason why we do it that way, okay. But if not, do we need to take a step back and look at the process? And is there something we can do better? And we are a huge part of strategic enrollment management, financial aid and student finance, it's not just the academic and the admissions and the advising. That's all part of strategic enrollment. It's the whole services that you offer the students and so weÕre always looking for, how can we impact that? And what can we do? And so, I listen to my staff, they're on the front lines with the students they know what the students are going through.

Yeah, a lot of times it's just that awareness and understanding. Sometimes itÕs as simple as what are the questions that you're being asked? Are the same questions getting asked over and over again, obviously, we're not educating properly about it, or it's not clear on how they can make payments, or it's not clear what their options are, or whatever it may be?

That's why one of our big things is we are now embedded in all student orientations. If they take the orientation online, there is a piece that we've done for the online. But if they do face to face, we are there. And we have close to 2000 students who had face to face orientation over the summer this year. And I don't have the count of how many online that we've impacted. But what it does is it tells them who we are, what we can do for you, how we interact with our office to take that scariness part away. We're a partner with you, we're not the debt collector. So it's had a huge impact. The college staff have been very happy with that, the students are very experienced if they attend, because they understand how they interact and how they do this and how they find the information out and the different options of payment plans and how refunding works. 

Yeah, and that seems like a no brainer, and that should absolutely always be part of orientation. But I've talked to a lot of schools and IÕve heard a lot of, they don't want us in orientation. It's like this uphill battle to have the student finance office or anything to do with payments or the business side to be approached during orientation. So how did you get that seat at the table?

So, at Alamo, we are very involved in the FranklinCovey practice of 4dx, or disciplines of execution. And every year we set our ÔWIGÕ, or Ôwild improvement goal.Õ So this last year, our goal was to get into orientation. And so just like at LCC, we had to fight for a seat at the table at orientation. It wasn't so much a fight here, as it was just getting by in from the vice presidents at the five colleges. And we have a good relationship with the vice presidents of academic success and of college services, any student success. And so when we explained what we wanted to do, and what impact we thought it was going to be, we were able to get that buy in, we were able to present a case that showed we're going to help the student in the long term. So we were able to get that buy in, we were able to get the seat at the table. And we took full advantage and ran with it and developed our orientation materials, and we were there.

That's awesome. And because you didn't have to just convince one person, you're talking five different schools. So your pitch had to go on five times to get buy in across the board. So kudos to you, because I know from talking to lots of different schools, that is certainly one of the bigger challenges. So now that you accomplished that, what has the success been, what's it been like for the students?

So it puts that positive face on the business office, we're building that partnership with the students teaching them that they do have a stake in their education, not just their academic, but in their financial, and just starting off on the positive foot. What we do in the business office, working with the students, it's emotional, because its money, and we understand that. So we want to start off on the good foot, we want to start off positive. And that's what these orientations are allowing us to do, we want to present ourselves as we are your partner in your success. And that's exactly what it has done.

It's great, because you're also educating from the very beginning. These are life lessons. This is not something that you have to just pay bills when you're in college. That's forever. So, you've already made significant changes. Are there other kinds of improvements that you're looking at, too?

You know, we always want to look at what kind of improvements are there. And that's where, if we don't step back and look at things, look at the overall picture and ask, why do we do it this way? Is there a better way to do it? I'm always keeping in mind that end goal of student success, both financially and academically, and we don't have any major initiatives coming right now because we just finished all of the work on the payment plans, changing some refunding processes, and now the orientation. And I do have a division of five other departments, so I might check on them for a little while. But we just keep moving down that path. And as we find things that will help us, then we want to look at, okay, that's our next WIG. That's our next wildly important goal that we want to set and how we want to impact our students.

Yeah, I think that's great. And so you also touched on, it's more than just the technology. So I think a lot of times, there's maybe this perception that we go buy a new tool, and then it just miraculously makes everything better. But generally, a tool comes with a change in process and education. And so thinking about people who are looking at also wanting to simplify by unifying all their systems. What advice do you have, both from a technology and a process improvement side?

So, planning is huge. And you really need to understand what is in process right now. What works, what do we need to improve on, what is efficient, what is not efficient? And then what tools are out there? And is it time to look for a new tool? Is it time to look for better technology that can help us better a system, that has better reporting, that allows better customer service, any of those things. But you have to first understand where you are and where you want to go. You need to get buy in from your staff and your leadership so that you have support to get there. And then project planning and understanding, it's not going to happen overnight. I am not the most patient person in the world, I will be the first admit, and my son will probably tell you the same. But, I've been here for 18 months, and there has been some very substantial changes that have been made. But the staff is energized, because they see the impact that it's having on their daily workload and on how they do their jobs. And the tools that I'm bringing in that are helping. But I also know that it doesn't happen overnight. And so, slow and steady wins the race, right? It's not just with the student facing, we're continuing in other areas, in finance, bringing in other tools that are going to help. And we have a dedicated technical staff that supports finance and fiscal services, and they're our tie in to IT. And that really helps. Because I don't have time to manage a project like that. And I don't have the technical expertise, I usually know enough to be dangerous. But I have a director of financial and fiscal services, technical services, who is certified in project management and as technical. And so he manages that stuff and keeps me up to date on where things are and where they're going. And project planning is probably the biggest advice that I can give, know where you want to go. 

Yeah, I think that's great. And I liked hearing that your staff are still energized. And so you probably have to also make sure along the way, it's not going to happen overnight, and celebrate the successes, even the small wins to keep people energized. 

Yeah, and I do some different things for my staff here to try to keep that energy up and continue to show my support of them and how appreciative I am of all the hard work and everything that they do. And, we call them power up Thursdays. We have one tomorrow, and it's just a chance to recognize staff for their outstanding work. And it's a great boost for the employees. 

That sounds really cool. Can you tell me a little bit more about power up Thursdays? I might have to join you.

So, we do it once a month, we do it the first Thursday of the month. I make a great big thing of coffee. And last month I baked cookies, this month, I'm going to Panera and getting bagels, just whatever. And then we recognize all the new employees, and any promotions that have happened. We recognize who has birthdays that month. We recognize who has service anniversaries and how many years of service they have to the college. And we do little raffles, we have a parking spot that we raffle off. So somebody has a dedicated parking spot for a certain amount of time or an extra jean day, or just those little things that you can do for your staff that don't cost you anything. But then the big thing that we do is, I send an email out saying power ups coming up, send me your nominations, and then colleagues nominate each other, and recognize the outstanding effort they're giving or a tough project that they got through or special help that they were given or anything like that. And so then we give the power up awards and recognize them in front of everybody on that power up Thursday.

That is so cool. I have a feeling that our listeners might be having their own power up day coming soon.

ItÕs a great half an hour. It's a break in the morning, and my staff love it. Well last month, they made me sing, that was crazy. Like you guys are pushing me.

So they get a little say in what happens on power up Thursdays. That is so cool. We have learned so much today. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and maximizing the financial technology tools that you have to help support student success, which is what it's all about.

It really is. That is the end goal.

That's awesome. Well, thank you again so very much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me, Heather.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Focus. Don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the business of higher education. For more information check us out at TouchNet.com.