Happy Friday everyone!

If you were able to take part in the RM-SAS sessions at COLTT last month, you know one of our topics of discussion was the need for institutions to develop processes or policies or guidelines for state authorization on campus. There are several reasons for having a well documented process, not least of which is that documents like these give you a leg to stand on should something get missed or should you need to document the importance of the work you are doing.

A well documented set of processes should have the following sections or attributes:

• Purpose - why do you have this?
• Application - who does this apply to?
• Definitions - what terms will you be using that may be specific to the process or need to be established (e.g. location)?
• Process - outline the actual process you are documenting, how does it work, who/what offices is/are responsible, when is it done, on what timeline?
• Application & use of data/information - What is the result of the process?
• Monitoring and Review - how & how often do you monitor and review the process?

Remember - when you are giving information on the how and the why, document and cite your sources (federal regulations, NC-SARA policies, etc). This again will help you and your colleagues know where to look for changes as well as assist leadership in understanding how things like state authorization tie in to other processes and offices on campus (e.g. program approval, accreditation, distance education, etc.). It may seem like a lot, but a well written process document can contain all of the necessary pieces bulleted above and will make your (state authorization) life so much easier to manage.

One more thing before the weekend - at the end of last month I was a guest host, along with my colleague Emily Woods from the University of Kentucky and Jeannie Yockey-Fine form NC-SARA, on the WCET-SAN podcast General Disclosure where we got a chance to catch up with Cheryl Dowd (WCET Sr. Dir. for Policy Innovations) and Shari Miller (Institutional Compliance MATTERS and the author of the Professional Licensure Disclosures: ImplementaEon Handbook for Institutional Compliance with the 2019 Federal Regulations) where we reflected on the last two years living with these 2019 regulations and how things on this portion of the regulatory landscape have been looking since then.

Have a great weekend!!

Erika

Erika G. Swain
Interim Assistant Director for State Authorization
Office of Academic Affairs
University of Colorado System
e: swaine@cu.edu
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Assistant Director for Compliance and tiuthorization
Office of Data AnalyEcs | Office of Institutional Research
University of Colorado Boulder
e: Erika.Swain@colorado.edu
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o: (303) 735-8184
c: (518) 637-9785