Stephen Degiulio (Sante Fe Community College Board, New Mexico, candidate 2025)
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Stephen Degiulio ran for election to the Sante Fe Community College Board in New Mexico. He was on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Degiulio completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Stephen Degiulio provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 5, 2025:
- Bachelor's: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 1972
- Graduate: University of the Americas, Puebla, México, 1990
- PhD: New Mexico State University, 2017
- Gender: Male
- Religion: None
- Profession: Professor
- Incumbent officeholder: No
Elections
General election
General election for Sante Fe Community College Board (2 seats)
Stephen Degiulio, Howard Roy Dittmer, Alan P. Jones, and Jody M. Pugh ran in the general election for Sante Fe Community College Board on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
Stephen Degiulio (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Howard Roy Dittmer (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Alan P. Jones (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Jody M. Pugh (Nonpartisan) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Degiulio in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Stephen Degiulio completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Degiulio's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I'm Stephen DeGiulio, Ph.D. in Learning Science and Bilingualism; I'm fluent in Spanish and English and have worked professionally in Mexico and India as well as 5 States in the United States, with 30 years in NM Higher Education. My mission is to make Higher Education effective in equipping citizens of all ages with the skills and knowledge they need to successfully manage a rapidly changing economy and society. Listening to a professor lecture and taking exams has a place, but active learning projects with teams of peers is what prepares young and old alike to prosper in a shifting workplace. The goal of Higher Education is mental and physical fitness, as the ancient Greeks advised: "A sound mind in a sound body."
What about the many High School Graduates who need a college education but have weak language and math skills? Yes, our schools need fixing, but today's college students need learning opportunities now that build their abilities while they are learning how to manage today's job markets, and these opportunities don't resemble the college courses of the past. Higher Education needs to reform itself to today's challenges, and this takes aware leadership and input directly from students.
Young college students starting adult life, midlife students managing life and career changes, and older students seeking wisdom and peace all need college programs that match their goals and empower them to achieve all they can.- Severe cuts to Federal funding of Higher Education, especially to minority serving institutions, have already been made, and more appear to be coming. Hard decisions will have to be made, but this is also an opportunity for making colleges more effective and efficient. College administrations are bloated with needless positions, and the digital paperwork is suffocating faculty in the trenches. Higher Education leadership must meet the challenge of making student success a higher priority than preserving hoary old traditions and dysfunctional administrative hierarchies, and I pledge to work in this direction--the direction of empowering college students to thrive and prosper under our ever-changing social and economic weather.
- Cuts in funding must not penalize any group of students more than any other group of students; and all cuts in funding must be fairly and proportionately born by all categories of employees, including management, through employee participation in program changes that may be needed. This is not easy, but will enable the college to survive and thrive under rapidly changing economic and social conditions. Abuses like grade inflation, workplace bullying, and favoritism must be treated seriously and eliminated. Employee compensation and workplace conditions must be fair and equitable so that students and all employees can live and work in dignity--this is a human right.
- Life Skills must come first in Higher Education--learning to express our ideas and feelings clearly and to understand others--both in speaking and writing--and learning to work with numbers as well as language. These Life Skills empower us to learn new job skills and change careers as needed in a rapidly changing economy, and to participate intelligently in our communities as informed citizens. To separate academic study from Life Skills and Professional Training is a long-standing mistake of our colleges, and this must be changed now with meaningful innovation.
Public policy in Higher Education has layers of legalistic regulations that prevent meaningful innovation. For more than a generation, colleges have increasingly standardized programs of study, exams, and management policies. Digitizing this standardization has further reduced productivity by diverting funding to purchasing and maintaining electronic equipment, and now, college instructors are being required to use digital equipment that does not benefit the great majority of students. Higher Education must reduce standardization and empower students--not to depend on digital tools, but to use them intelligently as aware citizens of a great country.
I look up to educators who honor the human purpose of learning to serve all our communities, beyond just maintaining traditional institutions. For example, Maria Montessori, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Rabindranath Tagore, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Martin Luther King, Paolo Freire, Caleb Gattegno, and so on.
Once elected, our public office holders should serve all citizens and residents, not any political party. I am not affiliated with any political party. The characteristics of an effective elected official are honesty and fairness, as well as conscientious fulfillment of the duties and responsibilities of their office; keeping their constituents informed of relevant issues; and soliciting input from constituents when needed. Honesty extends to refraining from making any personal profit from an elected position and conserving public and state resources for future generations.
The core responsibilities for a Santa Fe Community College Board Member are respect for all members of the college community and its service area, and persistence in gathering all relevant data before making decisions.
My first professional job was working with a research group on how Life Skills are acquired by people of all ages. To support our research, we took consulting contracts with New York City Public Schools and worked with teachers in some of the poorest schools, as well as some private schools. I left this job after 10 years to teach in Mexico.
The primary job of a college governing board member is to stay informed of the needs and wishes of all constituents, and to fairly represent them when proposing policies and voting on them. Balance in acknowledging opposing points of view is a key skill of an effective board member. Decisions made in secrecy destroy the validity of a governing board member or an entire board and must not be permitted, except when legally required.
The constituents of the Santa Fe Community College Governing Board are all the residents and citizens of Santa Fe County and surrounding area; students enrolled and eligible for enrollment; faculty and staff of the college and the college administration; and the state legislature in its role of oversight and regulation.
I will support the diverse needs of my district's students and their families and communities, the college's faculty and staff; and the college administration by being receptive to all valid input from all these individuals and groups, and doing my best to arrive at fair and comprehensive policy that moves the college's mission forward--to serve students and their communities.
I will accept requests to talk or debate with any group or individual who has a legitimate stake in the college's programs, and seek out those who fail to contact me, to open new avenues of relevant input for the community guidance the college needs.
Good teaching supports and is subordinate to learning. It takes creativity and flexibility to manage student groups who are creatively acquiring cognitive and vocational skills with which to base careers in the sciences, languages, business, education, fine and manual arts, etc. Teachers need the professional respect that allows them to choose the instructional approaches that best suit their students and their subject, and the kind of equipment they need for this. Faculty should not be burdened with unnecessary record keeping or other duties unrelated to teaching.
Currently in New Mexico bonds to finance capital projects are regularly on the ballot. Some of these are necessary, but bonds should be targeting better instructional support, faculty professional development, and higher student achievement, not just plant maintenance and new buildings.
Safety policy must include training students and staff to share the responsibility for everyone's safety. Electronic surveillance should add to this, and security staff should be outfitted with equipment and uniforms that clearly identify them but do not resemble police or military uniforms. Fear should not exaggerate the funds dedicated to security. A security officer vocational program with certificates should be available to students and community members--this is a growing career path and better served by security officers educated for service in public institutions rather than former police or military personnel.
When faculty and student advisors are not overburdened with non-teaching responsibilities, they form the first line in detecting student needs for mental health care, nutrition, housing, protection from abuse, etc. A person known to the student is much more effective in getting them the help they need than lists of phone numbers and websites, or making an appointment with a stranger, however well qualified.
College students of any age learn best when they are actively involved in learning activities and projects with their peers and instructors. Lectures and exams have a place, but learning is a creative process, and when students have opportunities to shape their own learning the results are greater and the dropouts are fewer.
Santa Fe Community College has underage as well as adult students, and relationships with the college are important for both groups and their families. The college also has a significant number of senior students, and they are also an important part of the community, both for what they add to the larger community and for their community connections which aid in increasing enrollment and gathering support for the college's programs.
Recruitment must begin with a compensation package that is feasible for the cost of living in Santa Fe City/County and appropriate for the position. The college can begin to take more advantage of its favorable living situation to attract the most qualified candidates. This may entail increasing administrative and staff efficiency by cutting redundant procedures and positions and redirecting resources to quality instruction.
Santa Fe Community College has excellent programs of many kinds, but it needs to strengthen its outreach to students in their first weeks of study with Life Skill building experiences that do not resemble High School.
AI use in college classes should be established by the course instructor(s), according to the subject area. AI can be a useful tool for college students, but its use should be limited or prohibited for courses where it becomes a distraction from human intelligence and learning. Faculty are professionals and can utilize AI as needed.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
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Footnotes
