Napolitano to head University of California

last updated 8 January 2015

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced last week that she is resigning in September to become the president of the sprawling 10-campus University of California. Napolitano called running the huge government department “the highlight of my professional career.” Having dealt there with hot-button issues from immigration to counterterrorism, she will have to address the chronic funding problems of the nation’s largest public research university system, which has had to nearly double tuition rates since 2008. Chosen from over 300 other candidates, Napolitano, a lawyer and former two-term governor of Arizona, will be the University of California’s first female president.