Coffman was principal of Salem, Indiana schools from 1900 to 1903; superintendent of Salem schools 1903–1906; superintendent of Connersville School 1906–1908; director of training at Charleston, Illinois Normal School 1908–1912; dean of education at the
University of Illinois 1912–1915; Dean of the
College of Education at the University of Minnesota 1915–1920; and President of the University of Minnesota 1920–1938. He was a visiting professor for the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to New Zealand and Australia 1931; visiting lecturer at the
University of the Philippines 1932; member of the
National Board of Education to do research in Russia and to visit Poland and Germany; was a consultant to the
US Department of Interior on a Land Grant College Survey 1928–1930; and advisor to the Surgeon General on education of disabled soldiers during WWI. He started at the University of Minnesota with a $12,000 annual salary. The university then had 8,200 students on campus. At the time, the university spent $6.5 million annually on the maintenance of the campus. The School of Education enrolled 600 and had 50 faculty members. The Music School building was under construction in 1920. After 10 years as president, the university's property values had increased more than 100%; the budget increased 68%; enrollment increased 60% in undergraduate classes and over 100% in graduate studies; staff increased from 479 to 825 with 25% having the rank of professor—becoming the third largest university in the U.S. During Coffman's time the Memorial Stadium was built,
Northrop Auditorium and the
Walter Library were added; and the Mayo brothers (
Wm J. &
Charles H.) gave the university $2 million for endowment of the Mayo Foundation for Graduate Medical Study and Research. Coffman's watch on the university included vigorous surveillance of alleged campus "radicalism," the number of Jewish students admitted to the university, and determined promotion of racial segregation in the university's dormitories. Black students mistakenly placed in university dormitories at admission were forced to leave, often after just one night's residence. Coffman rejected student protests. Despite a student-led substantial report comparing the university's segregated housing with integrated housing at other universities, Coffman insisted that "the races have never lived together nor have they ever sought to live together." Coffman's administrators compiled lists of "radical leaders" and numerical counts of Jewish and Black students who had been admitted to the university, practices that continued throughout Coffman's presidency. University housing was integrated in 1938 only when the historian
Guy Stanton Ford succeeded Coffman as president after Coffman's death. Housing segregation was briefly reintroduced when
Walter Coffey succeeded Ford as president in 1941, but protests forced Coffey to abandon the attempt. After a year's leave of absence due to a heart attack at his summer home in
Battle Lake, Minnesota, in July 1937, he resumed his job in July 1938.
Views on athletics Broadly, Coffman promoted amateur ideals and rules in intercollegiate athletics. He supported the 1929 Carnegie Report, which criticized
college football as overemphasized, and agreed with the
Big Ten's prohibition of
athletic scholarships and post-season
bowl games. ==Honors and controversies==