Her Story
About Lucy
My role as compliance officer is making sure that all aid is delivered by the book, both state and federal aid, because how you disperse and when you disperse, all of that is mandated by rules that the government enforces through audits. I start really early in the morning, as early as 8 sometimes, and I'm maybe done by 8, 9 o'clock, because I'm probably working a good 12 to 14 hour day on most days. I have a nice staff, hopefully enlarging it soon, and we all have to meet because we're dealing with high-level reviews, or we're dealing with an audit, and we have a team of lawyers. There's so much that goes into financial aid - there's applications, there's student complaints, there's administrator issues, there's system issues, there are computer software issues. We have a security team. We're in the midst of sending out award letters, award notifications to new students. Commitment Day is less than 4 weeks away. We are projecting enrollment. I manage a lot of money on a yearly basis, and every dollar is accounted for. We can dig back and tell you every student who got every dollar of any funding source, and why they got it, were they eligible, what was their GPA, what was their enrollment status. I've been directly responsible, since I started at CUNY, for $25 billion and about $250,000 students a year, give or take. In my lifetime, I've seen millions of students pass to my desk.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lucy
01What do you attribute your success to?
CUNY's just a great place to work. I don't think people understand that CUNY's such a melting pot. I have friends at all different ages, from ages 20 to 80. We have some 80-year-olds at CUNY. I would consider anybody who crosses my path, or who helps me along the way, you've built a relationship with these people. I'm happy every day going to work because I have great colleagues from all walks of life. None of us look alike, we're all different. But at the end of the day, I would say that we're all good people, and that makes it even more exciting to go to work, because I work with the best and the brightest. Without the people, a job would just be boring, sitting behind a computer all day. I have a great team, I have great colleagues, good people. We do a lot of good work together. Everyone is always pinging ideas off each other, running ideas by each other, thinking of things that we can do better, and we got some really smart people. We work with a lot of external stakeholders, mayor's office, governor's office, federal government. I know people at all different levels, and as far as going down to the cleaning woman who hugs and kisses me every day, and that's important. Because she knows that I leave candy on my desk for her. It's a full circle. The City University of New York is filled with very good people, and it's an honor every day to work there.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Do what makes you happy, because money will never make you happy. If you do something that you're happy doing, it's not work. And it is the best advice 30 years later. A college professor taught me that, and I didn't want to believe her. And then she was right. Because if you're not happy, nothing matters. You're just going to be miserable sitting at your desk.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Go big or go home. Study as much as you can, learn from the people that you work with. I'm good about draining information from people, because I like to speak to smart people. People that are gonna make me smarter. We all don't know a lot, but I don't know it all. And I'm willing to listen to what another agency has to say, or how they're handling something, is there something I'm not getting? Because when I tell you I'm the devil of the details, I will get into data elements that if you can get into a conversation with me at the bottom, I'll take you all the way to the top. You have to be very careful in this political environment, be very careful on how you say things. Because that's why it's important to make sure that you're perceived as very neutral. You have to learn to maneuver in the environment quite tactfully. At the end of the day, you have to learn sometimes less is more.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Letting students know there's opportunities for them is a challenge. Sometimes students don't believe that financial aid is there for them. Financial aid is there for them. So it's very hard sometimes to convince a family to fill out an application because they don't want to share their information. And they are fully eligible. So that really hurts when you can see a student who's eligible to go to school for free, and parents just won't complete the application. The problem is that some application requirements require a parent to be assisting them with the application, and their information is needed, and the parent may refuse. We can't force the parent. So there are ways around that, and we have to get very creative to make sure that we follow the letter of the law, and if they answer, you can still help the student.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Making sure a student succeeds, because at the end of the day, if they don't graduate, they don't get to the finish line, succeeding is it. And succeeding in my world, because again, they leave me, of course they're not staying with me forever, is getting to the finish line so that they can become a productive member of society. Pay their taxes, get a health insurance card. Simple things. Being able to rent an apartment. Contribute to the community, and again, and then just look back and say, well, at least we produced good people. My tagline is if an eligible student doesn't get paid, then I'm not doing my job. We've built things to make sure nobody slips through the cracks. If an ineligible student gets paid, I'm required to return the money, because that's the law. I have to follow the letter of the law. I don't get to look the other way.
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