2025 Academic Senate Elections

2025 Academic Senate elections are in progress. Voting takes place from Wednesday, April 9 - Friday, April 18. The results of the election will be announced at the Tuesday, April 22 Academic Senate meeting. For any position that does not have a nominee, a special election will need to take place to ensure the position is filled.

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Nominees

President: 1 Nominee

Daniel Keller

Candidate Statement: I believe my years of experience and dedication to improving participatory governance at CSM make me a strong candidate for the CSM Academic Senate president position for the 2025-2027 term. I began teaching at CSM in 2001, as a part-timer with only Saturday classes—the loneliest time to be on campus. I remember having only a vague sense of community and feeling confused about what “participatory governance” even referred to. Since becoming a full-time faculty member in 2002, I have been privileged to serve as English department lead (2007-2012) and have served on nearly all of the major campus committees, including four terms as a senator, as well as one or more terms on college council, curriculum, library, professional development, and accreditation. While I admit that I originally saw service on committees as just “part of the job,” even becoming slightly jaded about how impactful these roles could be, my time on the Senate executive committee in the past four years has been transformative: working with presidents Jeramy Wallace, Arielle Smith, Theresa Morris, and Todd Windisch, I have been able to attend plenary sessions, create a subcommittee focusing on AI, participate in district senate, and play a role in revising our program review process. Among many other accomplishments during this time, Senate has played an important role in preserving at-risk programs, improving how we serve students with mental health challenges, and ensuring fair, open discussion of too many issues to list. I have seen the college meet the daunting challenge of moving all of our classes and meetings online during the pandemic, and then return to campus with many lessons learned. Most importantly, I have seen the college culture change as we have focused more on closing opportunity gaps for underrepresented student populations, making diversity, equity, and inclusion central to our mission. I believe the coming years are likely to be extraordinarily challenging: we will almost certainly be facing budget cuts and other impacts of a highly unstable economy, as well as threats from a federal government openly hostile to our mission. We will be going through accreditation, dealing with the uncertain impacts of AI on teaching and learning, and accommodating many changes to curriculum and program review. Of course, every challenge is also an opportunity. I want to play a role in ensuring that we meet these challenges with honest, open communication and the widest possible participation. Thank you for considering my candidacy.

Vice-President: 0 Nominees

Secretary: 1 Nominee

Yvette Butterworth

Candidate Statement: I would like to continue my role as the Academic Senate Secretary. Over the past two years, I have demonstrated dedication and competence in this role, contributing to the smooth functioning of our Senate through accurate record keeping and interaction with the Executive Team in the planning of our Senate meetings. During the three years prior to my two-year term as Senate Secretary, I was one of the Senate Representatives for the Math and Science Division. With a background in leadership roles in organizations such as 4-H, FFA, and student governance, I bring a wealth of experience and an excellent understanding of the responsibilities of the Academic Senate Secretary position. Since joining the College of San Mateo in 2016, I have held various leadership positions that have greatly benefited our institution. I played a pivotal role in rejuvenating Math Jam and led the Math Department in aligning our course offerings with AB-705 through the California Accelerated Project. My work in Cañada’s ACES committee and student-centered course design led to my inclusion in Guided Pathways and Academic and Career Communities work that followed. This work has been instrumental in advancing our college's mission of creating and maintaining an accessible and inclusive environment that fosters academic excellence to ensure equitable outcomes where students can achieve their full potential. As I watched our student struggle and listened to my colleagues’ woes in trying to support these students due to AB-705 and AB-1705, I conceived of and introduced a new program called Math Bootcamp. This program has been highly successful in helping students achieve success in their transfer-level math courses, demonstrating my innovative approach and commitment to student success. Additionally, I represented our school at the Racial Equity in Mathematics Leadership Institute and attended Leading from the Middle Institutes, where they gained valuable insights into leadership which I have used both as an instructor, leader in my department, in my Guided Pathways work, and in my leadership role in the Academic Senate. Looking ahead, I intend to: • Support and collaborate with the executive team to ensure smoothly run Senate meetings. • Give insight from the previous executive team’s perspective to help the new team form a strong supporting core for our faculty • Provide timely and thorough notes for Senate meetings that will ensure that knowledge shared in the Senate can be found and referenced when needed and assured that the faculty voices are recorded • Do my part as a member of the executive team to assure that ALL faculty of CSM has a safe and respectful place to meet and collaborate to assure that we are able to serve our students Over the past five years, I have witnessed many inspiring moments in the Senate, and I wish to continue my leadership role as the Senate Secretary. The diversity of voices, perspectives, and positions represented by all our faculty solidify my belief that by working together, communicating, and developing processes that facilitate that communication, we can achieve our shared goals of student success. Thank you for your consideration and continued support.

Treasurer: 0 Nominees