Happy New Year! I hope you're all doing well and the semester is starting off with a non-destructive bang!

By now we all should hopefully have received notification that our reapplication for participation in NC-SARA has been approved. Please let me know if you're needing some assistance in geIng that completed or need assistance with paying the annual fee.

At this point, we're all working on continued research or annual updating on the professional licensure regulations and program applicability. Don't forget that compliance with these regulations from the Department of Education and NC-SARA, include the need for a documented process of review and application of our individual institutional processes. There is no one right way to run the state authorization & professional licensure and documentation process on our campuses, but making sure you document the process (including responsibilities, timelines, etc.) is a key part of these regulations.

A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to host, along side Heather DeLange at CDHE and Lisa Grimes from UNC, a series of online sessions about the professional licensure and state authorization overlap. Thank you to those that attended! I hope it helped a little! For those that were still curious but unable to attend, you can access the slides here.

Speaking of opportunities to learn more - NC-SARA has several webinars in the coming months relating to various aspects of our work - including a webinar on their new Salesforce system, tracking student location, proposed NC-SARA policy modifications, and the annual webinar on Data Reporting and changes to that process. This last one should be of great interest as they are expected to outline how Covid likely has impacted our data reporting. All of these webinars are free and open to all of us. Feel free to invite your supervisors - especially to the webinar on tracking students and the data reporting - so that the scope of this work continues to be understood and recognized.

If you’re looking for a new book in the new year AND looking for an in-depth look on state authorization - how we got to where we are in 2021 - I *highly* recommend Alan Contreras (ed.) book State Authorization of Colleges and Universities - Second Edition. The Second Edition has a number of updates from the First Edition including a chapter on how we got to the federal action in 2020 and all the interwoven pieces and includes some excellent advice that I know a few of us have spoken about before, and bears repeating - the necessary upkeep and periodic review of state authorization (and related) issues, namely that “Institutions need to allocate resources for keeping abreast of the changes and build action plans for review and compliance in to their regulatory compliance efforts,” (p.89).

As always, if you have any questions or need any assistance please do not hesitate to reach out!

Have a wonderful week!

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 Authorization
Office of Data Analytics | 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