Celebrating Compliance Creativity: Meet the 2025 SANsational Award Winners

Every year, the SANsational Awards remind us of something we in the State Authorization Network (SAN) community already know- compliance work is not just about checking boxes. It is about problem-solving, collaboration, innovation, and, most importantly, protecting and empowering students.

Since 2015, the State Authorization Network (SAN), a network of WCET, has awarded SANsational Awards annually to SAN members who self-nominated their work in the development of practices, processes, and polices to manage state authorization compliance. Over these years, it has become clear that institutions have become very innovative and have carefully considered processes to manage compliance that provide important consumer protections for students.

The 2025 SANsational Award recipients showcase how institutions across the country are transforming complex regulatory requirements into thoughtful, scalable, and student-centered solutions. From digital accessibility initiatives to licensure mapping tools to automated enrollment agreements, these projects demonstrate what happens when compliance professionals are given the space to innovate.

SANsational Award Process

Annually, SAN offers members the opportunity to submit a self-nomination form that describes the solution they intend to address. The form is reviewed by the Awards Committee, made up of respected compliance professionals. The committee evaluates the submission in four areas.

• The solution meets the requirements and needs of state and/or federal regulations, SARA policy, the institution, and students.
• The submission demonstrates a clear, comprehensive, and practical solution to meet compliance requirements.
• The project exhibits capability to be adapted or replicated as a model for others.
• The project addresses the specific focus of the category chosen.

In 2025, nominations were accepted in the following three categories:

• Compliance Innovations: Institution policy, tools, compliance teams, or other inventive or novel compliance management practices.
• Licensure Programs: Notifications and disclosures for professional licensure program status in each state.
• Location: How the institution identifies and reports where their students are located while taking online courses, doing internships/practicums etc., to meet Federal regulations (34 CFR 600.9(c)(iii) & 34 CFR 668.43(c)).

Congratulations to the 2025 SANsational Award Winners!

Category 1: Compliance Innovations

These institutions reimagined how compliance can be operationalized across a campus through governance, data systems, and cross-departmental collaboration.

Aims Community College (CO): Aims All in on Accessibility: A College-Wide Digital Accessibility Initiative and Framework

In response to evolving state and federal accessibility regulations, Aims launched a campus-wide initiative that embedded digital accessibility into its strategic plan. A cross-functional task force, a centralized Digital Accessibility Hub, practical training tools, and shared ownership across departments created a sustainable model aligned with Colorado’s HB21-1110 and federal Title II requirements. What stands out is how accessibility was operationalized not as a compliance task, but as an institutional culture shift.

Southern New Hampshire University (NH): Operationalizing Compliance: Coordinating an Institution-Wide Solution for Consumer Disclosures

What started as a routine update to consumer disclosures became a year-long, institution-wide collaboration among compliance, legal, marketing, and academic units. SNHU built a regulatory mapping tool, a SharePoint tracking system for content ownership, and a redesigned student-focused disclosure webpage. The result is a sustainable, replicable compliance system built entirely with existing staff and resources.

University of Kentucky (KY):  Software Solutions for Streamlined State Authorization and Licensure Data Management

UK spent two years building a data infrastructure that tracks compliance research, licensure determinations, program inventory, and reporting in real time, using tools many institutions already have: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce. This scalable approach proves you do not need proprietary software to build a powerful compliance data ecosystem.

Category 2: Licensure Programs

These projects tackle one of the most demanding areas of compliance work: documenting and communicating whether programs meet state professional licensure requirements.

Campbell University (NC): Training Manual to Document State Professional Licensure Educational Requirements

Campbell created a step-by-step Professional Licensure Investigation Resource Manual to guide academic programs through researching state board requirements. Complete with screenshots, examples, and a standardized documentation process, the manual turns a complicated research task into a collaborative, repeatable process across colleges and schools.

Dakota State University (SD):   Licensure Landscape: Mapping Requirements by Location

DSU replaced static spreadsheets with an interactive, accessible map that displays program availability and licensure alignment by state. Built with open-source tools and connected to a live SQL database, the map provides real-time disclosures for students and staff while supporting federal, state, and SARA requirements. It is a powerful example of transparency and technology working together.

Category 3: Location

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (FL): Automating Accountability: Dynamic Enrollment Agreements for State-Level Compliance

For students who frequently relocate, especially military-affiliated learners, Embry-Riddle created a system that automatically generates updated enrollment agreements whenever a student’s address changes. Each agreement includes the appropriate state disclosures and grievance procedures, eliminating manual tracking while ensuring real-time compliance across all states.

Learn more about the SAN Winners!

Congratulations, SANsational Award Winners! We are proud of you and grateful for your willingness to share your good work to develop dynamic new practices to address compliance management! The SAN Team was very pleased to visit each of these institutions to present their SANsational award in person and share the celebration with their colleagues.

You can learn more about these award-winning projects on the SANsational Webpage on the SAN website.  In addition to the 2025 Press Release providing a short summary of the projects, you will also find recorded presentations.

We are grateful to our 2025 Awards Committee: Sharyl Thompson, Jeannie Yockey-Fine, Miguel Valenzuela, and Ramsey Itani, who carefully reviewed and considered each award nomination.

The 2026 award selection process will begin in the summer.

The SANsational Awards are a celebration of the people doing the hard, detailed, often behind-the-scenes work that makes distance education possible, responsible, and student-focused. If you have ever wondered whether your compliance work makes a difference, these projects are your answer.

For more information about the activities, events, and resources provided by the State Authorization Network (SAN), please review the SAN Website or contact the SAN team at san-info@wiche.edu.

Author: Cheryl Dowd, Senior Director, State Authorization Network (SAN) & WCET Policy Innovations