Process and Timeline

Phase 1: Next-Gen K-State Land-Grant Strategic Planning Launch

July – September 2022

• We will begin engaging stakeholders and collecting data related to all facets of K-State operations to understand areas of potential focus or opportunity.
• We will design an inclusive and transparent strategic planning process that broadly engages the K-State community and beyond.
• We will launch a dedicated website to provide transparency into this planning process, share information and key updates, and gather suggestions, comments and feedback.
• We will form an advisory committee that includes students, faculty, staff, administrators, governance council leaders and alumni. This advisory committee will meet monthly in facilitated sessions throughout the planning process to review research and progress, ask questions, share insights, assist in identifying the key strategic themes and drafting the strategic plan, and advise university leadership throughout the planning process.

Phase 2: Where Are We Now?

September – November 2022

• We will engage in broad outreach to our internal and external stakeholders to learn about their aspirations for K-State, building on the initial data we will gather during Phase 1. This outreach will include students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, donors, and industry and governmental partners, Kansas residents and the general public.
• We will engage our K-State community in many ways, including through surveys, focus groups, listening sessions, interviews and more. We envision engaging thousands of K-State stakeholders through our outreach, working to ensure anyone who may want to participate in this process has an opportunity to do so.
• We will also use our strategic planning website to gather suggestions and input, along with incorporating feedback and input collected during our regional community visits taking place throughout this planning process.
• As we engage our stakeholders, we will conduct in-depth analysis on our own data as well as that of other institutions, conducting benchmarking that can help us understand where we are relative to our peers and inform future goal setting.
• We will also work to identify areas within our university organization or operations that can be strengthened or aligned to support our future vision.

Phase 3: Establishing Our Future Vision, Values and Key Themes

December 2022 – February 2023

• We will affirm our mission and identify our vision, values and key themes or areas of focus, using the data we collect through research, benchmark analysis and stakeholder engagement.
• We will create theme task forces that will meet regularly during the spring semester to propose programmatic priorities, strategies and measurable outcomes for the focus areas.
• These task forces will be structured to include broad representation among our university community, including students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni. They will be charged with reviewing data and stakeholder input to shape recommended programmatic priorities, strategies and measurable outcomes for each focus area.

Phase 4: Establishing Our Priorities and Goals

February – April 2023

• Theme task forces will meet regularly to review data, analyze and consider future opportunities, and propose programmatic priorities for each theme to be included in the draft strategic plan.
• The advisory committee will continue meeting throughout this phase, receiving regular updates on the progress of each task force and reviewing draft recommendations for both overall feasibility and alignment with our future vision and values.

Phase 5: Completing Our Next-Gen K-State Strategic Plan

May – August 2023

• The advisory committee, working with our consulting partners, will prepare a draft strategic plan taking us from fall 2023 to fall 2030 that includes our future vision, values, thematic goals, programmatic priorities, key strategies and measurable outcomes.
• The draft strategic plan will be widely disseminated to internal and external stakeholders for feedback and discussion during Summer 2023 prior to finalizing the plan in September.

Phase 6: Plan Launch

September 2023

• The new university plan will be launched and widely communicated with initial implementation plans to begin driving decision-making about how we allocate existing resources or develop new resources to fund our most crucial initiatives, adapt existing programming or launch new programming, refine our communication and brand, and more.
• During fall 2023, all colleges and major units will review and begin updating their own strategic plans to clearly align with the vision, goals, and major elements of the university plan.