Kansas State University

Maybe with Aviation to expand it to Aviation and applied science and innovation Developing applied programs that are the innovations of tomorrow to serve Kansas and the world - applied programs in aviation, outer space, renewal energy, wind farms in Kansas, in health and medical equipment, or other areas. 

I know these are meant to be thought of broadly but they could be worded better for a broad interpretation while still being strategic. NSF uses the term convergent research which I think is where you are trying to go. But these initiatives sound narrow when you are trying to attract more students and quality graduate students and faculty. We want to draw from the best and I fear some will look at those and if they are interested in journalism, or physical therapy, or hotel restaurant management, or creative writing, or any number of things, these initiatives may need all of those people but they may be turned off before they even apply. 

Transparency. The budget model is creating unnecessary divisions and deep silos. We must do better. 

These seem like good K-State strengths and areas to focus on. 

The online food science degrees should be more accessible. Right now, it makes potential students complete several gen ed courses before they can be apart of the program. That makes sense for on campus students, but for online students, it's just a deterrent keeping them from choosing K-State. 

Health and safety not only means educating students but providing innovative health related research. If we wish to maintain the R1 rating, faculty need to be actively engaged within high quality research and students need to be provided with hands on research experience that may not be provided with the global campus and cyber university concepts. 

The global food, health, and biosecurity initiative should be expanded to explicitly include the environmental challenges that underlie the most pressing issues facing Kansas and the world. The environmental changes that must be anticipated and addressed through innovative multi-disciplinary approaches to ensure a safe and secure future include climate change, population growth, scarcity of fresh water and other resources, environmental degradation, losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and emerging pathogens and infectious diseases. I don't think these very real and imminent challenges are adequately captured in the current global food, health, and biosecurity initiative. The initiative either needs to be expanded to address these environmental challenges, or an additional strategic initiative needs to be developed to capture K-State's unique strengths and abilities in the area of global environmental change. 

These new initiatives basically ignore about 80% of the research and creative efforts that occur on campus. These really only represent one of the current strengths of the university. These are also not "all encompassing" strategic initiatives, they are basically a poorly thought out grab bag of things that are kinda doing ok on campus. This really demonstrates both a lack of vision and a poor understanding of what actually happens on the KSU campuses. 

We must increase our live 24/7 IT Technical Support because students and instructors need assistance in a 24/7 format.

Geology and the history of the Earth will continue to be of academic importance in the future, but would not appear to fit into any of these four categories. 

Each college should have their own Instructional Designer/Technologist to complement the content experts (faculty). This can pay dividends both online and on-campus. This would also help faculty bring classes that are needed from reluctant faculty or departments online. 

We need a comprehensive vision for quality online educational options to support students. We've been in the online education realm for a long time, but it grew very organically and not strategically. We need to ensure that our online programs are taught in a high quality way using best practices for online education. Too many of our faculty are left without training and support - left to fend for themselves and guess at the best way to do things. They deserve support for improving the innovation and accessibility of the courses as well as recognition for their efforts - teaching online is not easy. 

We need to stay at the cutting edge of new developments, for the benefit of our students, our state, the country and the world. Among them are all things data science/data analytics, and resiliency. Both of these are hot and high impact issues. We need to stay on top of them. We need to keep our tools effective and our achievements lively, so we need to stay super competitive in basic research and scholarly activity. 

As a faculty researcher in A & S, I do not see my work or the work of my colleagues fitting in to these four foci. I would advocate for an explicit research component, and would like to see humanist/social science approaches (and contributions) figured into the strategic areas. I would also suggest the initiatives focus on non-industry achievements and outcomes, to include faculty and students' (1) contributions to civic society (2) relationship growth and support (3) ability to participate in inclusive, socially just, and democratic public life (4) cultural and other literacies, digital and otherwise For cyber land-grant institution, I think there are opportunities to leverage already existing strengths at KSU by critically interrogating technology use and creation from an ethical-political humanist framework. As a technology scholar, I am acutely aware that one important feature for future technology use is the ability to opt-out, not just extend or create additional technologies. In other words, we shouldn't just create new technological solutions, we should understand the impacts (known and unknown) of technology on society. We must make room for this in our research, teaching, and service. Finally, we must celebrate (and incentivize) excellence in public scholarship, including public intellectualism, translating academic research to broader audiences, teaching in the community, and other forms of extension. This may be part of the cyber land-grant initiative, insofar as digital tools provide opportunities to disseminate knowledge discovered at K-State beyond it. This will also help us make a case to the public for why our model of institution ought be supported. 

Earth and the environment Resiliency Exploration and innovation (for any category, from earth and space exploration, to drug innovation) Water 

Research is the corner stone of our university's mission, and yet it's not listed as a single one of the four areas of focus, and only listed briefly in "aviation" and "global health." This is deeply concerning. Our status in teaching and extension flows from a position as a leader in research. Without that lodestar, there's nothing that separates us from Pittsburgh State or Ft. Hayes. We cannot be derivative. We have to be leaders, but we cannot do that if our administration will hamstring those attempts by focusing on other metrics. 

I don't have enough familiarity with the first two initiatives to comment, but as far as Innovation in education initiatives go, a good example to look at is Oregon State University. Their online learning experience is very impressive and should be considered a benchmark to compare the industry to. Obviously we need to set ourselves apart, but we should try to find a way to hold ourselves to similarly high standards. I also see the Cyber Land-Grant University initiative as an opportunity to think differently about the traditional university model. As we think about how we can serve communities, we can also consider and apply the same considerations to 

These are largely incoherent as presented. The proposed new initiatives are meant to ‘recognize our strengths’, ‘acknowledge areas for improvement’, and ‘identify opportunities for growth’. If so, why does the document not make clear which initiatives are building on strengths and which are correcting weaknesses? For example, is the focus on aviation because we are good at aviation or bad at aviation? No rationale is presented for why these particular 4 areas are important/interesting/unifying/etc. Of the 4, Global Food, health and biosecurity is the least bad. I like that it meshes well with the land-grant mission but has a global focus as well. It meshes with a subset of faculty in many different colleges- Ag, Vet Med, Arts and Sciences and others. i dislike that it’s framed in very applied terms. As at all major universities, much of the heart and soul of this university involves more fundamental research, teaching and scholarship in the natural sciences and humanities. That is not recognized in any of these strategic areas. In more practical terms, this focus area would also mean that the university continues to funnel intramural money into research programs that have already received a great deal of targeted local support. The aviation focus is embarrassing. What fraction of KSU research and teaching relates to aviation? I am sure it is quite small. What is the argument for making that particular fraction larger, especially in an era of fixed/declining budgets? This risks the credibility of the whole document if it looks too much like a pet project of the upper admin and not a unifying theme for a broad swath of the university community. The Cyber land-grant thing is meaningless as written. What technology? To serve what end? Who will create it? Who will use it? This sort of meaningless consultant-babble detracts from the whole document. The Innovation in education component is similarly devoid of meaningful content. Phrases like ‘reimagining our models for academic innovation’ are meaningless without specifics. It also seems to overlap excessively with the Cyber Land-grant theme. 

1-Innovation in Education and Cyber Land Grant are not really strategic initiatives in my opinion. These two should be embedded throughout the university, in strategic initiatives and elsewhere. These two are what we should be doing throughout the university. 2-Global health, food security, and biosecurity is so broad as to be meaningless. 

I like the cyber land-grant positioning. Unfortunately I often feel K-State has lost it's land-grant mission so having this included is at least somewhat reassuring. Hopefully this includes taking knowledge outside of Manhattan and in more ways than online courses (first gen and underserved poor communities/residents often are intimidated by or do not have quality access to online-only delivered content) I'm concerned the term "innovation" has become a buzzword. Numerous reports are now available about the fiscal drain and lack of achievement at university "innovation" centers. Hopefully this is more than just a buzzword in the plan. I would rather see this labeled as education for all rather than innovation. What you've stated is quality education for anyone who participates in K-State learning. Sorry - this is reads as an empty statement from a conference speech or a consultant. 

Yes, we need to serve our campus students, but we also need to consider the needs of non-traditional students, alumni and employers. What kinds of up skills do employers want their employees to learn? Can we provide these skills and still keep the on campus classrooms running with only a set number of professors? With new technologies, we are not limited to on-campus lectures, but to become a cyber land-grant, we will have to use innovative technologies and we may need to hire instructional designers to help faculty create these innovative practices. 

We need to address biodiversity and sustainability in the global food initiative. Without incorporating these, we create bigger problems for ourselves and a greater strain on people and resources. Aviation and Cyber Land-Grant appear very broad, with little detail on the issues at stake, but maybe they are supposed to be that way. 

The Cyber Land-Grant University is a great initiative, but it seems like it could almost be the driving forced behind the other three initiatives. The Cyber Land-Grant is "mobilizing and developing technology to serve communities" but each of the other initiatives highlight the need for technology. A Cyber Land-Grant University is the overarching goal of the other three initiatives. How can we elevate our Land-Grant Mission by putting technology at the core/foundation of what we do? This should be the question we ask as we develop our initiatives. Without a strong technology focus, we will miss the future opportunities that come our way.