1- President’s Message

CSM Forward 2028, College of Mateo’s five-year Education Master Plan, details college priorities and outcomes, district and college goals, planning and strategy (to inform programming), resource allocation, facilities visioning, and long-range imagining . The plan is both a look backward at where we have been and a look forward to where we might want to go .

Our 100-year legacy, which we celebrate in this centennial year, requires us to reflect on our evolution as an institution of higher education . As the times have changed so has the College . CSM has moved through the decades serving San Mateo County and connecting community members to education, resources, and workforce development . Our students are mothers, fathers, cousins, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters .

We have been the community’s college through social, civic, economic, cultural, and world events . Imagine some of the events the College has seen: women’s suffrage, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, FDR’s New Deal, United Automobile Workers and workers’ rights, World War II, Pearl Harbor, the birth of Israel, NATO, the discovery of DNA, Brown vs . Board of Education, the Little Rock Nine, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, Nixon’s resignation, the rise of the personal computer, AIDS, the birth of the Internet, the Berlin Wall falls, wars in Middle East, Amazon .com is born, the age of Google begins, the International Space Station opens, 9/11, Facebook, Hurricane Katrina, the iPhone, America’s first African American president, NASA flies by Pluto, devastating wildfires, and COVID-19 . Progress, integrity, and transformation have defined us and as we come together, we set the course for the next five years and well into the future .

Thanks to the campus community and our community partners for your service and commitment to CSM students .And thank you to the many students, faculty, classified employees, and administrators for contributing to the development of CSM Forward 2028 .

A meaningful community college education is not just about what one learns academically but about what one gives, shares, and becomes .

In community,

Jennifer Taylor-Mendoza, Ph.D.