Marianne Boeke, Ph.D.

Dr. Marianne Boeke is the President of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA). Located in Boulder, Colorado, NC-SARA is a private nonprofit organization that, in partnership with the four regional compacts, coordinates the implementation of SARA nationally. NC-SARA supports, facilitates, and serves the regional compacts, the regional steering committees, the State Portal Entities, and SARA participating institutions. SARA helps expand students’ access to educational opportunities and ensure more efficient, consistent, and effective regulation of distance education programs. Boeke joined NC-SARA in 2018 as the associate director for policy research and state support. She subsequently served as senior director and vice president for research and state partnerships. In the latter roles, she oversaw all aspects of SARA data collection and reporting, supervised other related research projects, and curated the State Authorization Surveys (The Guide). She provided state and regional compact support and, with senior leadership, worked on policy-related issues.

Prior to joining NC-SARA, Dr. Boeke served as a senior associate at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) for 14 years. She worked on a variety of long and short-term projects collaborating with the Aspen Institute, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, National Science Foundation (NSF), Strada Education Network, WICHE, and WCET State Authorization Network (SAN). She has worked at WICHE/WCET and at the Western Governors University (WGU) during the inaugural years; she has also held several institutional administration positions in both Washington, D.C. and Colorado.

Dr. Boeke has written about and presented at numerous national, regional, and state conferences on a variety of topics including evaluation, qualitative research, accreditation, post-secondary attainment, technology and costing issues in higher education, competence-based education, state authorization (compliance issues), and federal/state regulations. Marianne’s work in state authorization began in 2011 when she co-created the SHEEO survey on state authorization. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver, a master’s degree from The American University, and a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University.