By Alexis Alvarez, Feb 18, 2025
Cal Poly Pomona University President Soraya M. Coley announced her retirement Feb. 4 after her 11-year tenure via email, but it is unclear who is set to replace her in July or what will happen to the Presidential Excellence fund she has established.
Coley shared prided in her tenure at CPP where she implemented initiatives for student success, according to her letter to the campus community.
“I have been blessed to work alongside talented faculty and dedicated staff, transformation leaders, visionary thought partners, passionate professionals, who have been committed to our students’ success and the betterment of our colleagues,” Coley said in her letter. “I dedicated my efforts to improving the lives and futures of our students.”
Provost S. Terri Gomez and vice president and chief of staff Nicole Hawkes said they are saddened for Coley to retire because of the mentorship and joy of working with her, but they are happy she can enjoy retirement with her husband, Ron Coley, who she mentioned in her email to the campus community.
Gomez said it had been the privilege of her career to work with Coley. Both Hawkes and Gomez said Coley leads with integrity, is deliberate and is an ambitious leader.
Coley has a total of 40 years of experience as a higher-education leader in the California State University system. She started as a lecturer at Cal State Fullerton, where she became a full-time faculty member and then dean. After that, she was appointed provost at CSU Bakersfield and next president of CPP.
Hawkes said she learned what it meant to be an ethical leader who makes decisions on principles and data from Coley.
“She has the highest sense of integrity of any leader I’ve ever worked for,” Hawkes said. “Nobody works harder than President Coley.”
According to Hawkes, Coley’s approach is to always keep her work student-centered.
“She wants to know about our students,” Gomez said. “She cares deeply about their lives, their culture and making sure that we deliver on the polytechnic education that will set our students apart in their future careers,” Gomez said. “I think that’s her legacy. That she’s worked very hard to deliver on that promise for Cal Poly Pomona.”
Throughout Coley’s time at CPP, she has made different impacts on the campus, such as investments in academic advising and the development of the Care Center, according to Gomez and Hawkes. The Care Center is a “one-stop shop” accessible for students in support of their basic needs, Hawkes said.
“A lot of people are responsible for what emerged in becoming the Care Center,” Hawkes said. “It was the president’s leadership and her desire to have a better service model for students and her providing the appropriate resources.”
The investment in academic advising allows students to have easier access to an adviser and freed up faculty who were having a ratio of about one advisor for 700 students, allowing faculty to take on different mentoring roles, according to Gomez.
The university is now close to having four colleges with a ratio of one advisor to 500 students, Gomez said.
The investment cost about $2 million over the serval years of implementing a comprehensive advice infrastructure and data support like CPP Connect, creating advising for students in one place, according to Gomez.
Gomez said students need someone they know who can help them and someone they can ask questions without feeling embarrassed, and the point of having an assigned adviser is for students to have a sense of guidance during their time at CPP.
“(Coley) pushed us really hard to come up with a new model of centralized advising that would result in the hiring of professional academic advisors across the college,” Gomez said.
While there may have been influential impacts for student success under Coley’s presidency, students’ opinions differ.
Everett Elias, a single subject credential student as well as the president and co-founder of Student Initiative for Justice, felt Coley didn’t do much for the campus community and did not have interest for what the campus needed.
“(SIJ) were heavily involved in the (California Faculty Association) strikes that happened over the last year, and the unfortunate reality is that she did not support faculty conditions, student learning conditions and fires the one provost (Jennifer Brown) who spoke up in defense of CFA,” Elias said.
Richard Gonzalez, a history student and the History Club president, said he is annoyed at Coley’s recent decisions, such as not supporting the CFA strike and the new rebranding that undermine the values of the campus.
Gonzalez added that leadership at CPP is more focused on bureaucracy than fostering an environment for students, which he described as disheartening.
William Cardenas, a physics student, was a first-year student at CPP when The Poly Post published a story about the whistleblower protections violations involving Coley. He said it was not the best first impression of her, and he feels there is a misuse of funds, like the reported $4.1 million spent on rebranding.
“I really feel that could be better spent improving the actual on-campus living experience,” Cardenas said. “A lot of that is from my experience as an out-of-state student. I’m kind of stuck here. I have to deal with whatever we have, and it feels like each year we get less and less.”
Elias, Gonzalez and Cardenas each expressed frustration toward Coley and administrators for the misuse of funds, a lack of support for faculty and students, and embezzlement, which involved a former Foundation employee who embezzled over $1.3 million and Coley influenced the report to distance the university and her administration, according to an article by The Poly Post.
Cardenas said he knows multiple professors who share the same frustrations towards Coley where they feel there is a lack of resources within the university, and they find it difficult to make any changes under Coley.
But according to Hawkes, when in a position of leadership, an individual cannot be in the job with a desire to be liked.
Hawkes feels there is a misperception to how the campus views Coley.
“As someone who works with her every day, she is crystal clear on the reasons why she makes decisions and how it will impact individuals within the community, and she has been unafraid to make the hard decisions, even if people have a negative opinion of her,” Hawkes said. “But she knows it’s the right thing to do.”
Feature image courtesy of Tom Zasadzinski
