Columbia's director of federal relations since 1991, Ellen Smith has been appointed assistant vice president for federal relations.

Smith represents and informs the Univesity on issues such as financial aid, Medicare and Medicaid, research funds and tax policies as they pertain to higher education.

The Federal fiscal year '96 ends on Sept. 30, 1996, and Congress is moving rapidly to pass spending bills for fiscal year '97 (10/01/96-9/30/97).

  Of the thirteen spending bills Congress must pass to avoid another government shutdown, only two have been signed into law. A number of these bills will be signed before Congress adjourns in late September or early October. It is expected that the bills funding the NIH; student aid; NOAA; NEH; NEA; USGS, and the CDC will be folded into an Omnibus before the end of the session.

  At press time, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was slated to offer an amendment to increase education funding in the FY 97 Labor/HHS/Education bill. His amendment would increase the amount of money available in the Senate bill for the Federal Work Study program, Perkins loans, State Student Incentive Grants and the Pell grant maximum. The amendment may have bipartisan support. NIH funding in that bill was four percent above last year's level. Senators also named the new NIH Clinical Research Center after Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark Hatfield, who received an honorary degree from Columbia last spring.

  Also slated for floor activity in the Senate this week is the Interior bill, where there is a bipartisan effort underway to fund the NEH at close to last year's levels.

  Last week the House of Representatives passed a non-binding Sense of Congress resolution urging the Department of Education to enforce campus crime regulations.

  The House also passed a bill, which the Senate will not address before the end of the session, that would allow lenders to waive the three percent origination fee for students who are borrowing Stafford unsubsidized loans.

  For further information contact: Ellen S. Smith, assistant vice president and director of federal relations, via email.