The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education appoints a new chancellor

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education announced the appointment of Sean Burrage, current Vice President for Executive Affairs and Chief of Staff at the University of Oklahoma, as their new chancellor during a meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024.

Burrage will take office as the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE)’s 10th chancellor on Dec. 2, 2024, succeeding Chancellor Allison D. Garret who has been serving for three years but will retire on the first of December.

“We had about 26 applicants. We interviewed six, and the one that came out on top was Sean Burrage. With his background and everything, his interview was just outstanding,” said the State Regents’ Chair Dennis Casey. “We’re pretty excited. We feel very fortunate to have that type of quality fixing to be our next chancellor.”

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education is the statewide coordinating board for Oklahoma’s 25 public colleges and universities, said the State Regents’ Associate Vice Chancellor for Communications, Angela Caddell.

This board is made up of nine people appointed by the state’s governor and approved by the Oklahoma Senate called the State Regents.

These nine State Regents have the responsibility of overseeing and maintaining various academic standards for every school over which they serve.

This includes actions such as determining functions and courses of study at state colleges and universities, granting degrees, requesting appropriations on behalf of state system institutions, setting tuition and fees, approving institutional allocations, upon review, providing final approval of institutional budgets following governing board approval and submission, and managing numerous scholarships and special programs, continued Caddell.

For example, Oklahoma’s Promise, the scholarship program offered to Oklahoma students that pays the recipient’s entire tuition fee from a two-year college or a four-year university, is administered directly by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

This means that as the newly appointed Chancellor of the OSRHE, Sean Burrage will serve as the chief executive officer for Oklahoma’s system of higher education, and will lead the OSRHE on significant decisions regarding the state’s public college and university academic and financial standards.

Included in this is the State Regents’ Blueprint 2030, a four-goal plan made to explain what the OSRHE sets out to accomplish for Oklahoma’s system of higher education by the year 2030.

The four goals are producing workforce-ready graduates; growing the student pipeline, focusing on student success, and improving system efficiency and effectiveness, as stated on okhighered.org, the OSRHE’s website.

“Blueprint 2030 includes recommendations for action to increase degree completion in our state, ensure higher education closely reflects state workforce needs, and utilize limited system resources successfully to maximize impact,” said Caddell.

Burrage will also oversee OneNet and OCAP, and direct 20 statewide scholarship programs and statewide GEAR UP efforts. The Chancellor also represents Oklahoma public higher education as a member of several professional, state and national organizations, including the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), continued Caddell.