Angela Coaston

When Angela Coaston, PhD ‘21, MS, FNP, became dean of Pepperdine University’s new School of Nursing in July 2024, she knew she was starting on a new adventure — for herself and the school. She’s the founding dean of the School of Nursing in the College of Health Science. 
 
Coaston is leading with a people-first approach. “Often in nursing programs, we go right into the hospital, and I want the nursing students of Pepperdine to understand the social determinants of health and their impact on overall health before they understand and learn physical assessment and skills in an acute care setting,” she said.
 
Coaston learned the significance of understanding a patient as a whole person through her decades of experience working in health care as well as through her education at the UCSF School of Nursing.
 
"I sit here as dean largely because I faced my fears and met people who believed in me, helping me persevere through adversity," she said. “My experience getting my PhD in Nursing at UCSF was much more than a PhD. It was a personal life transformational experience.” 
 
Coaston earned her Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Phoenix and Master of Science in Nursing and Family Nurse Practitioner credential from Western University of Health Services. She started as a pediatric nurse before moving into emergency nursing and pediatric emergency nursing, in different health care settings, including medical centers, private clinics, mobile health clinics, public schools and faith communities. She wanted to do more, so she moved into health care leadership, working to improve patient care and case management at Loma Linda University Medical Center and Azusa Pacific University. 
 
Coaston was also the co-founder and CEO of Well of Healing Mobile Medical Clinic, which provided free, primary care services to underserved populations in San Bernardino County, including for individuals that were unhoused and uninsured.
 
That experience led her to do her doctoral dissertation on mobile health clinics, so she and other health care practitioners could better understand who they were serving and their role in the overall health care system. “I had been running a mobile health clinic for 15 years, and I wanted to know what difference we were making,” she said. 
 
Not only did the research show that these kinds of clinics provide a return on investment through things like avoiding emergency room trips, decreasing hospital stay times and improving chronic disease management, but she also published papers in Population Health Management and International Journal of Health Equity based on the research. 
 
While working full time, Coaston commuted to San Francisco by plane to earn her degree, despite having a fear of flying. She said she wouldn’t have finished it without the support of both the faculty and staff at the UCSF School of Nursing. Even the coffee shop across from the library left an impression on her. She said she fell in love with Pepperdine University for its similarly welcoming student environment — one that understands how much busy, and often weary, nursing students appreciate a good cup of coffee after a long day at the library.
 
Just as she learned about the importance of a whole-person approach at UCSF, she is creating a curriculum that will instill those tenets in the new nursing school’s students. 
 
"I want the foundation to focus on understanding themselves and the environments where people live, work, play and pray, rather than concentrating on tasks like learning vital signs. This will enable student nurses to view individuals more compassionately and holistically, meeting them where they are," she said. 
 
She hopes that through this people-centered approach, student nurses will not only learn more about their patients but also about themselves. “My goal is to foster a sense of self-worth, self-awareness, and self-empathy in students by teaching resilience and emphasizing compassion for both self and others."