Mission and Values Statements

College Mission & Diversity Statement

College of San Mateo is committed to addressing the broad educational needs of the local and world community. We foster success and ensure equitable opportunities for all our students, while celebrating the diversity of our campus.

Value Statements

Equity
As a Hispanic Serving Institution, we are committed to creating a socially just campus climate wherein everybody is welcome and celebrated, and wherein everybody is an integral part of the campus. We believe that all students are entitled to a safe learning environment that celebrates their intersectional identities, fosters their agency, and develops their capacity for self-advocacy.

Academics
CSM takes great pride in its commitment to academic excellence. Our goal is to facilitate engaged, informed leadership and successful, satisfying careers for our students. We see our campus as a vibrant hub of intellectual rigor and relevance. As such, we embrace mindful learning, information literacy, and independent thinking to ensure a dynamic, innovative workforce and transfer population.

Community
Consistent with our commitment to equity, CSM strives for a vibrant, inclusive and safe college community. In support of this, we must recruit and retain a diverse faculty and staff and foster professional development informed by critical pedagogy and aligned with our college mission. Together, we aim to create an environment that fosters collegiality and empowers our students to reach their full potential inside and outside the classroom.

Governance
Because the college’s success is intricately linked to the collective wisdom and values of its students, faculty, staff, and administrators, we strive for an inclusive, collaborative, and transparent decision-making process and governance. To this end, we strive to ensure that communication is multidirectional and incorporates feedback from the entire campus community.

Approved by Institutional Planning Committee, April 3, 2018
Approved by Board of Trustees, October 24, 2018