Associate Professor Matthew Hudelson
College of Arts and Sciences | Mathematics and Statistics
WSU Pullman
In 1995, I arrived at Washington State University as a newly minted assistant professor in the Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics (now the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.) Eager to establish myself, I began working to prove results in discrete mathematics, publishing papers and doing the activities expected of young faculty members.
During a session at the following year’s Joint Mathematics Meetings, I heard Joe Gallian give a talk aimed at new mathematicians in which his main message was, “find your niche.” This advice has resonated with me throughout my near quarter-century career at WSU; for me, that niche has been to participate in and, later, play a lead role in our department’s ongoing reform efforts for our large service courses, particularly for the calculus for engineers and physical sciences sequence (Math 171,172,273). This has expanded to playing an expanding role in serving students and, as a consequence, serving faculty institution-wide. My service activities over the past few years have been centered on the interface between students and faculty beyond the day-to-day classroom experience. I hope to continue learning through new roles and contributing to student success at WSU.
Ultimately, I have become increasingly involved in shared governance via the Faculty Senate, serving as a senator representing CAS Physical and Life Sciences in 2018-2020, serving on the Faculty Affairs Committee starting in 2020, and culminating in assuming the role of Executive Secretary of Faculty Senate in fall of 2020; I am completing my second three-year term in this role and hence, I am choosing to run for re-election this year.
During my tenure as Executive Secretary, we have navigated the transition from in-person to remote Faculty Senate meetings via Zoom. In my opinion, this transition has enabled significantly improved access to the Faculty Senate processes for all faculty across the WSU system. Additionally, it has facilitated balloting processes for measures that come before the senate. During the 2021-2022 academic year, we had two measures that were contentious enough to require the chair of the senate to cast the deciding vote. Verifying the accuracy of the vote counts in real time was critical and the technological assistance provided during the meeting was essential for a timely outcome to this process. Another initiative which began in 2024, was our on-boarding session for new senators and committee members. This now occurs each fall two weeks before the first full Faculty Senate meeting and it provides practical details of how Faculty Senate works, from how meetings run to how items proceed through our committee processes.
Additionally, I hope to continue our efforts to improve maintenance of the senate agenda and minutes, as well as tracking of items, including curricular and degree changes, as they navigate through the Faculty Senate process. Another duty that I have taken seriously is the maintenance and custody of the Faculty Manual and other policy documents; this has included continued ex officio service on the Faculty Affairs Committee in order to contribute to their critical deliberations that have lasting impact to all faculty across the WSU system. These efforts have led to an online version of the Faculty Manual that is searchable and that meets accessibility standards. I hope to broaden the scope of this effort to include other policy documents including the Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws. These efforts are often in cooperation with WSU administrative offices; in particular, I want to continue our efforts to strengthen our coordination with the Provost’s Office concerning procedures for policy, course, and program development.
Finally, I want to continue to facilitate the dialog between Faculty Senate, colleges, and campuses to improve the election process for new Faculty senators; in particular, I want to build on the significant progress we have made in coordinating with the campus faculty organizations in the election process.
My institutional service and professional development roles include:
1. Various Department of Mathematics and Statistics Committees 1996-Present
2. Project NExT Fellow 1996-1997
3. WSU Math Club Advisor 1995-1998
4. WSU All-University Math Committee 2005
5. Participant, “The Calculus Symposium,” McGraw-Hill, August 2008
6. College of Sciences Equipment Grant Review Committee 2008
7. Project NExT Consultant 2008-2019
8. College of Sciences New Faculty Grant Review Panels 2008, 2009
9. Regents Scholarship Selection Panel 2012, 2013
10. Participant, “Calculus Review,” Pearson, April 2015
11. College of Arts and Sciences Strategic Planning Committee 2016, 2017
12. Member of WSU Student Services & Activities Fees Committee Fall 2017-Spring 2019
13. Project LIFT fellow 2018
14. Participant, Provost’s Leadership Academy 2018
15. Co-chair of WSU Course Materials Value and Effectiveness Committee Fall 2018-2022
16. Co-chair of Syllabus Task Force Fall 2018-Fall 2019
17. WSU Faculty Senate, Senator representing CAS Physical and Life Sciences, Fall 2018-Spring 2020
18. Faculty member director of Student Book Corporation’s board of directors, 2019 – 2023
19. WSU Faculty Senate Parliamentarian, Fall 2019-Present
20. WSU Police Advisory Committee, Fall 2020-Fall 2022
21. WSU Faculty Affairs Committee member, 2020-Present (ex officio from Fall 2023)
22. WSU Faculty Senate Executive Secretary, Fall 2020-Present
23. WSU Syllabus Subcommittee, co-chair Fall 2019– Fall 2021; ex officio Fall 2021-Present
24. WSU Information Technology Strategic Advisory Committee (ITSAC), Fall 2023-Spring 2025
25. Department of Mathematics Director of Undergraduate Studies, Fall 2023-Present
26. Department of Mathematics Undergraduate Studies Committee chair, Fall 2023-Present
27. WSU Student Technology Fee Committee, Fall 2023-Present
28. WSU Parking and Transportation Task Force, Fall 2024-Present
~Matthew Hudelson