State Sen.-elect Kathy Sheran received appointments Monday to two Senate committees that oversee crucial pieces of south-central Minnesota’s economy — the panels dealing with higher education and health care.

Sheran, DFL-Mankato, made it a theme of her successful campaign to replace retiring Sen. John Hottinger that her experience and expertise were in key areas at this point in Minnesota’s history. A registered nurse and a nursing instructor at Minnesota State University, Sheran said her background would be helpful in dealing with challenges related to ever-rising health care costs, skyrocketing college tuition and the way those high costs affect accessibility to both medical care and education.

“I think my background makes me uniquely prepared, as a freshman anyway, to serve in those areas,” she said.

Sheran will serve as vice chairwoman on the Senate Higher Education Budget and Policy Committee and will also be a member of the Health and Human Services Budget Committee.

The first committee’s importance in the region is clear considering the presence of MSU and South Central College, along with private colleges such as Bethany Lutheran and Gustavus Adolphus. All are in Sheran’s Senate District 23. But the Mankato area is also a regional center for health care, Sheran noted.

“I think I’m really well-positioned for the needs of our district,” she said of her committee assignments, both of which were high on her wish list.

In addition to those budget-setting committees, Sheran will be on two policy committees — the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the newly created Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications Committee.

Sheran said environmental issues, and how they relate to renewable fuel industry, are also priorities for her.

The DFL, which has controlled the Senate for decades, approved committee assignments for its members at a caucus meeting Monday afternoon. Also Monday, the House DFL Caucus released its list of committee chairs but not memberships on the committees.

With Democrats taking control of the House, southern Minnesota will lose several committee chairmanships now held by House Republicans. And because all three Mankato-area Democrats in the Legislature are freshmen, the region won’t have a lot of high-level representation in the pecking order of either chamber.