Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, will become the next President of the University of California if approved by the full Board of Regents on July 18, 2013. (Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security). Click to enlarge.

Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, has been selected as the adjacent president of the University of California. Credit: Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Secretarial assistant of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will resign her post to get the next president of the 10-campus Academy of California system, officials announced Friday.

Napolitano was the unanimous option of a UC presidential search commission, which considered more than 300 candidates for the top job, said UC regent and committee chair Sherry Lansing.

"Secretary Napolitano is a distinguished and dedicated public servant who has earned trust at the highest, most critical levels of our country's government," Lansing said in a argument. "She has proven herself to be a dynamic, hard-working and transformative leader."

Napolitano said she is "both honored and excited by the prospect of serving as president of the University of California," in a statement released by the UC president'due south function.

The Homeland Security primary has some familiarity with California. She is a graduate of Santa Clara Academy, where she was the academy's first female person valedictorian. She earned her law degree from the University of Virginia.

If approved by the full Board of Regents, which is scheduled to vote on her nomination on Thursday following the regents' regular bimonthly meeting in San Francisco, Napolitano, 55, would become the beginning adult female to head the UC system in its 145-year history.

Though she is an attorney, Napolitano will be but the second person without a doctorate to lead the campus since Robert Gordon Sproul, who served for 30 years, from 1928 to 1958, noted John Douglass, a senior research fellow at UC Berkeley'south Middle for Studies in College Education. Outgoing president Marking Yudof is also an attorney, merely has extensive academic experience as chancellor of the University of Texas system and as president of the University of Minnesota.

'Historic choice'

"Moving from the governorship of Arizona, to Homeland Security, to the caput of the UC organization is bound to heighten eyebrows among UC faculty – who are the primal constituent in the success of UC'southward mission of education, research and public service," Douglass said.

Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Quango on Education, who called Napolitano'due south selection "an historic choice," agreed that Napolitano volition be tested by UC faculty. "Probably the biggest part of this task that will exist brand new to her is that universities operate with shared governance, where the kinesthesia play a major role in the overall governance of the university," Broad said, "and there probably is no stronger kinesthesia senate than the ane at the Academy of California."

Douglass and Wide said the regents made a strategic conclusion in nominating someone with a potent record of public service and political acumen at a time when the university organisation is still reeling from $860 million in budget cuts over the by five years and a nearly 100 percent hike in tuition, from $v,790 in 2007-08 to $11,160 last yr.

She's going to be comfortable going to the state Legislature and Gov. Jerry Dark-brown to advocate for more state funding to increment enrollment and invest in academic programs and research, Wide said.

"But I remember mostly what she brings to UC is that she's run a large complex organization in Homeland Security that has all of the national intelligence apparatus and a meaning scientific research agenda. She knows how to become things done in a huge complicated organization," said Wide, adding that Napolitano's fundraising skills volition as well be hugely important.

Napolitano acknowledged that in choosing her, the Board of Regents signaled a alter of direction for the academy.

"I recognize that I am a non-traditional candidate," she added. "In my feel, whether preparing to govern a state or to lead an agency as disquisitional and complex as Homeland Security, I accept found the best way to kickoff is simply to listen."

Positive response

Her nomination is receiving widespread support throughout the university and the state Capitol.

Photo from Flickr

Sproul Plaza at University of California, Berkeley. Photo from Flickr

"In my discussions with her, Secretary Napolitano clearly articulated the view that the University of California must do all it can to ensure non only that it remains the greatest public university in the world in the 21st century, but as well that it moves to new heights," said Robert Powell, chair of UC's systemwide Academic Senate and a kinesthesia representative on the Lath of Regents. "She has deep respect for the faculty, and she will listen to what we say. She knows that, as the core of what makes UC great, the faculty must accept an environment in which they tin thrive as scholars and teachers."

"Secretary Napolitano has the strength of grapheme and an outsider's heed that will well serve the students and faculty. It will be exciting to piece of work with her," Gov. Brown said in a statement.

Raquel Morales, president of the University of California Student Association, said she's looking forward to coming together with Napolitano next week before the regents' vote, but said she was "shocked" that the regents went public with their choice before giving students an opportunity to speak with the finalists.

Morales said the student system wants to know what Napolitano will do to meliorate the climate on UC campuses, which have been beset with racial and indigenous conflicts in contempo years. She also wants to talk about improving communications with students, starting with belongings Board of Regents meetings at different UC campuses, a do that ended when protesters disrupted meetings.

When President Barack Obama nominated her as the third secretarial assistant of Homeland Security, Napolitano was in her second term as governor of Arizona. "The American people are safer and more secure thanks to Janet'due south leadership in protecting our homeland confronting terrorist attacks," Obama said in a news release. "I've come to rely on Janet's judgment and advice, only I've also come to value her friendship. And as she begins a new chapter in a remarkable career of public service, I wish her the best of luck."

Napolitano praised the section's work in improving the safety of the American public. "After four plus years of focusing on these challenges, I will be nominated as the side by side president of the Academy of California to play a role in educating our nation's next generation of leaders," she said in a argument.

Napolitano would replace Marker Yudof, who announced in January that he is stepping down at the terminate of August. As president, she would oversee the 10 UC campuses, more 234,000 undergraduate and graduate students, three national laboratories and five medical centers, with a budget of more than than $24 billion.

Yudof's annual bacon is $600,000. A spokesman for UC said bounty details for Napolitano won't be fabricated public until the regents' vote adjacent week.

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