Our Vision & Priorities

Our Vision

Together with its members, SHEEO will promote an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors.

Our Mission

We aim to achieve our vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education; promoting public policies and academic practices that enable Americans to achieve success in the 21st century; and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership.

Who We Serve

SHEEO serves the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs.

Our Strategic Priorities: 2019-2023

Over the next five years, SHEEO will work to strengthen its service and support of its members and the field by focusing on three strategic priorities.

Strategic Priority 1
Strategic Goal
The goal of this priority is to support SHEEOs and their staffs in the procurement of relevant knowledge, by serving as a primary and reliable source of in-depth and comprehensive information on state higher education policy and practice.
Strategic Goal
The goal of this priority is to offer thoughtful analysis and insights into issues, such as equity and finance, which build the knowledge base of leaders of higher education policy.
Strategic Priority 3
Strategic Goal
The goal of this priority is to position SHEEO, along with its members, as critical voices to be engaged at the state and federal levels on issues pertaining to and intersecting with higher education.

Explore the Priorities

Strategic Priority 1

SHEEO aims to promote the value of its membership with its ability to bring members together to network, learn from each other, and create connections with peers across states. Membership provides access to thoughtful, non-partisan, and timely analysis of critical issues for the field to inform policies within states. The association supports the professional development of the leaders and staffs in SHEEO organizations and champions the critical role these higher education leaders play for the states. Through these efforts, SHEEO works to advance the profession and promote critical outcomes like educational equity and the public good.

Strategic Priority 2

Multiple organizations regularly share the latest headlines and research related to higher education issues, challenges, and successes. While valuable, rarely are these outlets from the perspective of the state leaders in the field who aim to turn this information into policy. SHEEO sees it as its responsibility to contribute thought leadership about issues that affect the decisions of policymakers and their staffs. SHEEO offers analysis across states, taps into the expertise and experiences of its membership, and provides a broader perspective on matters relevant to the field. SHEEO sees it as a responsibility to be a prominent voice in the field, particularly around issues of educational attainment, equity, and other important student outcomes.

Strategic Priority 3

The national discourse about higher education indicates that a significant proportion of America questions its value and questions the purpose and benefits of state-level offices governing or coordinating higher education. SHEEO’s most significant service to its members is the role it plays in being a champion for both the public good of higher education and the state leaders who focus on these issues.

About Our Strategic Plan

Our Strategic Priorities form the core of the Strategic Plan that will guide our organization over the next five years. The desired outcome of the strategic planning process was a mission-focused, actionable plan that broadens and maximizes SHEEO’s strengths and strategically positions the organization to realize its vision and accomplish its mission.

SHEEO received a capacity building grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to engage in the strategic evaluation and planning process to assess its direction, ensure effective and efficient service to its members, and develop a strategy for future action. To help them do this, SHEEO contracted with VOX Global, HCM Strategists, and Research for Action (RFA).

The strategic evaluation and planning process included phone interviews and online surveys between November 2017 and January 2018 to gather feedback and input from current and former state higher education executive officers, state higher education policy organizations, and other stakeholders. Visits to fifteen state higher education member agencies representing a diverse group in terms of size, geography, and governing type occurred between November 2017 and June 2018. All SHEEO staff were interviewed in April and May 2018. Overall, well over 300 people from the higher education field provided their insights to inform the development of this plan.