Kansas State University

Letter to Campus from President Schulz and Provost Mason: K-State 2025

Submitted by President Schulz and Provost Mason

Dear Faculty and Staff,

Spring is here and it's time to update you once again on K-State 2025 and invite your feedback. You can continue to follow the history and progress of K-State 2025 by visiting the 2025 website.

In early February, we announced the formation of seven theme committees, each charged with producing a strategic action plan for a specific theme supporting our visionary goal to become a Top 50 public research university by 2025.  Each committee was asked to identify "where we are going and how we will get there?" in a theme area, address the key benchmarks and common elements, if appropriate, and take into account the more than 2000 ideas collected in focus groups and online last year. 

We asked the committees to:

• think broadly, boldly and not be constrained by resources;
• be solution-driven and focused on positive outcomes;
• step out of their disciplines or colleges and think on behalf of the University as a whole; and
• complete their work by the end of March in order to provide time for campus comment this spring.

Last week the co-chairs presented to Cabinet and it was clear that the committees fully met their charge.  Working separately, but using the same facilitated process and logic model template, each committee produced a thematic strategic action plan. Together, the Committees have proposed seven thematic goals for K-State 2025 and broad, directional, inter-related action plans linked to each goal. Each plan includes an overall goal; assumptions upon which the plan is based; outcomes defining expectations for the next five, 10, and 15 years; and a broad set of suggested activities to support achieving the outcomes. 

Given that the committees worked separately, the commonality among the groups on general directions and the interconnectivity of ideas is truly amazing. As you will see, although the committees developed stand-alone plans, they actually build on each other. For that reason, we are sharing the seven individual plans for your review and feedback. After we complete the comment period, a single, integrated plan will be finalized and launched in August as our road map to K-State in 2025.

Since we began the K-State 2025 effort, our ultimate goal has been a visionary plan that is inclusive, exciting, innovative, and encompasses campus-wide involvement as we work together for K-State's future. We encourage you to read and provide feedback on the thematic goals and associated strategic action plans proposed by our Theme Committees. Online comments will be collected until the end of May. 

As you read, please keep in mind that these are plans that set directions, not detailed implementation plans.  Those will come later as well as specific benchmarks for each thematic goal.   

We want to thank the 84 committee members who committed their time and effort during the past eight weeks to this critical phase of K-State 2025. We knew we were asking for much to be accomplished in a very ambitious timeframe. The faculty, staff, students, administrators, and alumni on the committees exceeded our own expectations. Thanks to them, K-State is well on the way to advancing our 2025 vision. (And learning about Wordles – check it out!)

Go Cats!