Our Partners & Leadership

Marjan Coester is the former director of Student Engagement for Umpqua Community College.

Marjan Coester is a native to the Northwest, born and raised in Eugene and returned to Oregon from Washington State in 2005. While in Washington, she served as the Director for Student Life/Multicultural Student Affairs at Clark College and as the Assistant to the Director for Student Activities at Skagit Valley College.

She comes from a strong family commitment to higher education - she herself, her mother and sister are all graduates of the University of

Oregon - and at one time, all three worked at the UO.

She discovered her passion for working within the field of Student Development/Student Affairs while an undergraduate at the University of Oregon.

Although she majored in Business, she volunteered and worked extensively in orientation and advising programs at the UO; her senior year was spent considering how she could transition from the field of Business to Higher Education.

Her foray into Student Life was somewhat accidental; a position opened at a local community college and she was encouraged to apply, in spite of the fact she had never participated in student leadership or campus activities. It was this opportunity that drew her to her calling in Student Life and to a master’s degree in Student Personnel Administration from Western Washington University.

As a leadership development educator and advocate, and a strong believer in walking the talk – she has served in leadership roles at not only the local levels, but statewide and regionally as well. Marjan enjoyed the opportunity to give back to the profession, by helping organize conferences and

present workshops.

Ask her what she likes to do in her free time, she’ll tell you that she is an avid consumer of books, with a personal library of over 1,000 “real” paperbacks and another 2,000 + “virtual” e-books. She enjoys tabletop, console, computer, and mobile games. She is a highly handicapped golfer and an inflexible yoga practitioner. Her favorite decade of music is the 70’s, specifically disco. She’s blessed to be married to Todd, who supported her passion for work by not complaining about the long hours and made sure she was fed and watered regularly. Their seven cats are constant companions and enjoy the opportunity to leave their own (claw) marks on her leadership development materials.

After 18 years as the Director of Student Engagement, Marjan chose to leave Umpqua Community College and is taking time to repurpose and define her next decade of work, which includes narrowing the focus of what she was previously responsible for to better reflect her commitment to leadership and organizational development through education and training utilizing an equity lens.