Supporting our shared vision to be the next-generation land-grant university

A letter from Jesse Perez Mendez and Marshall Stewart
Monday, Sept. 15, 2025

Dear Colleagues,

Since launching the Next-Gen K-State strategic plan, we have seen tremendous accomplishments, success and growth of university priorities and initiatives. Student enrollment is making great strides, enhancing our campuses’ vibrant, active communities of students, faculty and staff. Our vision of providing students with a top-notch academic experience, driving impactful innovative research, and creating a positive impact in Kansas and the world has already seen success because of your dedication and passion.

K-State is fortunate to be operating from this position of growth and momentum, as it affords us additional space to think and plan proactively.

While we have achieved success in many initiatives, we recognize that emerging initiatives will require new ways of thinking to empower our vision. Many new and better systems supporting how the university manages its resources have launched, and more are in progress as we become One K-State in all that we do. The opportunity to maximize these efforts is before us, but it requires changes to the way we work.

Today, we are launching a new budget transformation initiative — one that will:

• Achieve our initial goal of building a revised budget model that drives the university’s strategic priorities forward.
• Establish a wrap-around budget framework that will help us create and foster the agility required to position our institution for future success and greater impact toward our mission.

Bottom line: This new process will focus our priorities toward doing what we do well, but better, and align our efforts to our mission to ensure success.

This new initiative will be led by a senior leadership steering group and five functional working groups still being formed. The working groups, as charged by President Linton, will identify opportunities within their areas of focus, maximize resource flexibility and utilization, and make recommendations to align our financial resources with our Next-Gen K-State plan. Final recommendations will be delivered to President Linton by the end of the fall 2025 semester.

Thank you to all who have contributed to the budget model review process that began last spring. This new initiative builds upon that work to ensure we become the model next-generation land-grant university.

Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president

Marshall Stewart
Executive vice president for external engagement and chief of staff