Kristi Ridgway

Kristi Ridgway has been named dean of language arts for College of San Mateo. A faculty member in English and ESL, Kristi has served as interim dean of language arts since August 2017. A former journalist and editor, she has found a calling at CSM to serve a culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Kristi started teaching in the San Mateo County Community College District as an adjunct faculty member in ESL. She became a full-time ESL faculty member in 2005. Since then, Kristi has taken on a number of faculty leadership roles over the years. She managed the day to day operations of College for Kids at CSM, wrote CSM’s BSI grant request and proposed career pathways for Health and Business. She has expanded professional development funding and coordinated activities and reporting for CSM’s SSSP and Equity programs. Kristi also encouraged and recruited faculty to attend the California Acceleration Project workshops, which put CSM’s curriculum years ahead of the requirements specified in AB 705.

Kristi was also instrumental in strengthening the partnership with the San Mateo Adult School. She served as part of the team that planned and executed a $2.2M ACCEL block grant to work with local adult schools, and she wrote and piloted alternative placement measures for adult school students.

Kristi has an M.S. in teaching ESL from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in journalism and mass communication from Drake University.