With four decades of experience in higher education, Coley is the first woman and first African American scholar to be named president of Cal Poly Pomona.

[4] Coley joined Cal Poly Pomona from California State University, Bakersfield, where she was the provost and vice president for academic affairs from 2005 to 2014.

[6] She is married to Ron Coley, who served two decades of active duty as a pilot in the Marine Corps, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

[7] In 2022, a whistleblower lawsuit alleged that Coley interfered with police work and the legal process multiple times on the Cal Poly Pomona campus.

[8] Among the most notable of these alleged occurrences were a series of blockages that slowed investigation into an embezzlement of over a million dollars[9] and the premature closure of a 2021 sexual assault case.