Hi:
It was this paper by Larry Hoyle:
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi31/019-31.pdf
entitled: "Reading Microsoft Word XML files with SAS®".
Although his example is not quite so easy as you dream of, his solution does show building an XMLMAP to read the Word XML.
The downside I see is that you'd have to be sure that their Word "database" always was saved as XML and that they ALWAYS followed the same table formats.
I don't suppose you could convince them to at least move into Excel?? Oh, hey, I have an idea. There are these great things called index cards, they're paper, see. And if you write your data on the index cards in pencil, then you can flip through the cards and review your data and even change it with this other invention called an eraser. And, you can sort them, by hand! It's so much fun!
Sorry, I couldn't resist! I sure they have a very good reason for keeping their info in Word. And the next time we're at the same user-group meeting, come and find me and I'll buy you a coffee and tell you the story about the Word Processor Student Information System!
cynthia