The University of California Board of Regents is meeting in San Francisco on Thursday to consider selecting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as the next UC president.
Napolitano will be the first-ever female president of the UC system if approved by the regents, who are meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus to consider the nomination.
She was unanimously recommended by a special regents’ selection committee that looked at more than 300 candidates for the position, according to UC officials.
The regents have been meeting since Tuesday at the conference center on the Mission Bay campus.
Today’s meeting was the last for outgoing UC president Mark Yudof, who announced earlier this year that he was stepping down from the post at the end of August.
Yudof said at this morning’s meeting that he is “honored and grateful to have had the privilege of serving as president of the University of California,” which has had major budgetary issues in recent years due to a declining economy and decreases in state funding.
He said the UC system “must change or it will deteriorate. The change must be systemic, however, and rooted in the university’s multiple constituencies and cultures and core values. If we all dig our heels in place, then UC will wither and weaken.”
Napolitano is resigning from her post at the Department of Homeland Security to take the UC president position.
Prior to that office, she served as governor of Arizona. She also has Bay Area ties, having graduated from Santa Clara University as the school’s first female valedictorian, according to UC officials.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
