Scouting the Location : CSUN’s New Chief Jolene Koester Tours Campus

Jolene Koester, the new president of Cal State Northridge, announced Wednesday that she will take the helm on July 1.

The 51-year-old provost and vice president of academic affairs at Cal State Sacramento made the announcement just before her first tour of the Northridge campus since the California State University Board of Trustees hired her Tuesday.

After consulting Cal State Sacramento President Donald R. Gerth and California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed, Koester said it was decided she was needed in Sacramento for the rest of the academic year. In the meantime, Louanne Kennedy will continue as interim president and Koester will visit periodically to prepare for her new job. Koester may even fill some of the 70 open jobs at Cal State Northridge, which include two vice presidencies.

Koester started out her day in Long Beach, where she discussed her transition with Kennedy over breakfast and talked with Reed about her start date. “I had my first L.A. freeway experience driving from Long Beach,” she said. “We got stuck on the 710.”

At Northridge after a brief meeting with her future executive staff, Koester walked briskly through the three administrative “tents”--temporary offices set up after the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged the old administration building--shaking hands, hugging and chatting with every secretary and staff member.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for accepting this position,” said Margaret Fieweger, associate vice president of undergraduate studies, as she embraced Koester. “People here are so happy. They were predicting you would be the president. You’ve got a lot of campus support.”

“Well, thank you,” Koester said quietly. “That means a lot to me.”

Koester, a bespectacled woman who assiduously avoids standing behind podiums because of her small stature, strode through the offices at a furious pace. At one point, university spokesman John Chandler noticed she was outdistancing several journalists in tow and waved at her to slow down.

Koester’s reception was unwaveringly upbeat as she greeted everyone with the broad smile that is a constant feature on her face.

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One secretary held out a copy of Wednesday’s school newspaper with Koester’s picture on the front page.

“Could I have your autograph?” she asked.

“Of course,” Koester said, scribbling her name.

“I like how you don’t hold back your happiness,” said another secretary.

“I enjoy feeling good about my world,” Koester replied.

Until Monday night, Koester’s world revolved mainly around Cal State Sacramento, where she had been hired in 1983 as a communication studies professor. She became chairwoman of the department in 1986 and three years later was elevated to assistant vice president for academic affairs. She became vice president in 1993 and in 1996 was also named provost.

A well-known communications scholar, Koester, who is single, has continued to write academic books and articles during her administrative career. In fact, Koester said an article she recently coauthored--”The Dialectics of Intercultural Communication”--is currently under review by an academic journal.

Koester’s training as a communications expert was in full view as she walked from person to person--greeting everyone from a security guard, to student workers, to a couple of men conducting an administrative audit for the Board of Trustees.

“Find all the problems,” she told one of the auditors, jokingly. “So when I come in next year they’ll all be fixed.”

Koester, a native of Plato, Minn., was one of about 100 candidates and four finalists for the job that Blenda J. Wilson left last summer. Wilson is now the president of a Massachusetts-based educational foundation.