University of California president says she’ll step down next year

University of California system president Janet Napolitano announced on Wednesday that this academic year will be her last, after a 10-year term at the helm of the 10-campus system. 

Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009 and President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, was the first woman to serve as president of the system. After she resigns on Aug. 1, 2020, she said that she plans to teach public policy at UC Berkeley.

During her time as president, the University of California system advanced opportunities for students interested in information technology. The system began allowing high school students to use computer science classes as prerequisites for admission to nine of its campuses, signaling “acknowledgement that CS, much like the traditional science courses, has merits for students going through high school,” according to Claire Shorall, a high school computer science teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The university system also launched a technology platform for some 8,000 IT professionals across the UC’s campuses and medical centers to collaborate on projects during her time as president, with the help of chief information officer Tom Andriola.

It was announced last week that Andriola, who served as the system’s CIO for the past six years, will take over as the University of California, Irvine’s first vice chancellor of information technology and data at UC Irvine and UCI Health.

A new university system president and chief information officer have not been named.