Kansas State University

Next-Gen K-State IT Transformation Initiative

Submitted by Jesse Perez Mendez and Ethan Erickson

Dear Colleagues,

At K-State, we lead as the next-generation land-grant university, setting the standard for inspiring learning, creativity, discovery and engagement. Our vision is to positively impact society and transform lives in Kansas and beyond.

As we move toward our bold future, we are instituting standards, adopting best practices and establishing foundations to enable operational excellence all across the university for our success.

This year, we saw our information technology infrastructure and environment attacked. This threat caused many to pivot and quickly adapt to continue our teaching, research and engagement mission. We appreciate all those who took quick action to support our students and continue our mission. However, threats like this are not rare or the exception. They are part of operating as a top-tier research institution with influence and impact across the globe.

To achieve our Next-Gen K-State vision and goals, we will need to transform our operations.

Today, we are announcing an IT Transformation Initiative to ensure our success as we grow our institution and continue to deliver on our land-grant promise. This initiative will transform how we strategically manage, support and organize our IT infrastructure and deliver our services. Our goal is to align IT as a strategic partner to all academic and administrative units as a cornerstone to success by reducing risk, establishing standards and frameworks, bridging technical depth and enhancing our cybersecurity posture.

This transformation will focus on policies, governance and organizational structure. It will include creating new policies and standards framework, implementing a formal IT governance structure with executive oversight and cross-functional representation and enhancing staffing, training and restructured organizational reporting lines.

Modernizing policies

Our current IT policies need to be updated to allow us to align our IT infrastructure to operate under current standards and best practices. Adopting the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, Cybersecurity Framework, will align our practices with recent action by the state of Kansas. Next, crafting a policy development lifecycle program and a roadmap for high- and medium-priority policy adoption must also be implemented. Policy development will engage stakeholders and be based on industry best practices. The process will be agile and nimble, enabling the university to adapt to the ever-evolving IT landscape. A vital component of the new policy process will include enhanced communication and organizational training on policies.

Formal IT governance

An institutional IT governance framework is essential to provide strategic guidance and codify decision-making supporting IT modernization and alignment with the Next-Gen K-State strategic plan. Effective governance increases our agility to transform, improve and collaborate through planning and engagement. This new governance framework will be designed to ensure that IT delivers maximum value to university stakeholders, appropriately manages our risks, measures our performance and aligns with our shared strategic goals. 

Enhanced and integrated organizational structure

Meeting our operational excellence goals requires changes to our organizational structure within the Division of IT and our academic and administrative units. Additional positions will be hired within the Division of IT to increase capacity and expertise in securing our core infrastructure and improving our security posture. New positions will also focus on developing and maintaining core IT infrastructure and university workstation environments and modernizing and streamlining data integrations.

In addition, the transformation process will establish college or major unit-level IT director positions. These positions will collaboratively develop and implement strategic IT plans for a college or major unit aligning with its strategic goals and the Next-Gen K-State strategic plan and be integrated into the college or major unit providing supervisory leadership for all positions performing IT work. The goals of this reorganization will be to:

• Improve coordination and collaboration through a unified reporting structure.
• Improve our ability to offer consistent technical experiences for our workforce, instructional spaces and research areas. 
• Implement consistent training for our IT workforce to meet technical standards and best practices.
• Enhance cybersecurity and risk management through improved oversight.

Overseeing the college or major unit IT directors will be two new assistant vice president positions within the Division of IT. The first will focus on academic areas, while the other will engage with administrative and enterprisewide systems. An internal search for an interim assistant vice president for academic and research IT will begin immediately.  

Over the next several months, a transition team will work with colleges and campuses to facilitate a consultative approach to implementing this new structure. The team will work with deans and vice presidents or their designees to identify current employees performing IT responsibilities within their units and determine how these roles will align with the new IT structure. The goal will be to fill all open IT director roles and complete the reorganization by the end of FY 2025. 

We encourage you to review the information on the IT Transformation website and have established an email address, it-transformation@k-state.edu, where you can submit questions. As we make progress toward our goals, we will share additional resources, information and answers to commonly asked questions.

Thank you to all K-Staters — employees, faculty and staff — who worked to better support and secure our university this past spring. As we strengthen our operational excellence across K-State, IT transformation will be a critical foundation for success as a next-generation land-grant university.

Sincerely,

Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president 

Ethan Erickson
Vice president for administration and finance