Hello,
I am new to forum - and have a general question.
I need to restrict user access control of featured articles.
I want this permission to be placed with an administrator only.

How can i accomplish this, as the user group settings do not seem to offer this control measure.
Ex. I want my users to be able to self publish, however, i do not want them to be able to feature the article (category).

Thanks for your help.

Hello and welcome to the community,

By default, this is not possible. You need to use a 3rd party extension.
I am not aware of one, but you can look at the JED or getk2.org/extend/ for extensions.