Matthew Hudelson’s Statement of Candidacy

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, 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 in new roles and contributing to student success at WSU.

Ultimately, I have become increasingly involved in shared governance via the Faculty Senate, culminating in assuming the role of Executive Secretary of Faculty Senate in fall of 2020; I am completing my first 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 faculty across all WSU campuses. 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 these instances was critical and the technological assistance provided during the meeting was essential for a timely outcome to this process. Additionally, I hope to continue our efforts to improve 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 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. Finally, I want to continue to facilitate the dialog between Faculty Senate, colleges, and campuses to improve the election process for new Faculty senators.

My institutional service and professional development roles in the past five years include

1. Faculty representative on the Services & Activities Fees Committee from Fall 2017 to Spring 2019 and during the 2021-2022 academic year
2. Project LIFT faculty fellow during 2018 calendar year
3. Co-chair for the Syllabus Task Force (now the Syllabus Committee) from Fall 2018 through Fall 2019
4. Member of the Syllabus Committee since Fall 2018
5. Co-chair for the Course Materials Value and Effectiveness Committee from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020
6. Participation in the Provost’s Leadership Academy during the 2018-2019 academic year
7. Faculty Senator representing CAS Physical and Life Sciences constituency Fall 2018 to Spring 2020
8. Leading the effort to reorganize the Faculty Manual, incorporating career-track faculty language into the appropriate sections during Summer 2019
9. Member of the Modernization Advisory Taskforce during 2019-2020 academic year
10. Faculty representative on the Student Book Corporation board of directors since Fall 2019
11. Faculty Affairs Committee member since Spring 2020
12. Executive Secretary of WSU Faculty Senate since Fall 2020
13. Member of the Environmental Scanning Taskforce during Spring 2021
14. WSU Police Advisory Board member during the 2021-2022 academic year
15. Parliamentarian for Faculty Senate since Fall 2021
16. Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics starting Fall 2022

I offer many thanks to the Faculty Senate for the privilege to serve in this capacity for the past three years. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to serve as Executive Secretary for the Faculty Senate over next three years as well.

Matthew Hudelson
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
WSU Pullman