By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Sharon Bernstein
LOS ANGELES, July 13 (Reuters) – In hiring Janet Napolitano to run the sprawling University of California, state officials are counting on the Homeland Security chief’s political savvy and fund-raising prowess to restore a system racked by years of budget cuts and turmoil.
Napolitano, a two-term Arizona governor plucked by President Barack Obama in 2009 to be Secretary of Homeland Security, said on Friday she would leave that post to run the university’s 10-campus system, pending final approval by the board of regents expected next week.
Chosen from among more than 300 candidates in part because of her political skills, the 55-year-old Democrat will take the helm as the university is struggling to recover from economic crises that have eaten away at the state budget on and off for nearly two decades.
Cuts of nearly $1 billion over the last five years have led to tuition increases and class shortages, and have strained relations with faculty and staff through the imposition of furlough days and hiring freezes.
“Her job is to restore the glory of the system,” said Jack Stripling, who covers college leadership for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
To do that, Napolitano will have to persuade the politicians who control the state budget that a high-end university is an asset worth paying for – while showing faculty, staff and the 234,000 students that she is on their side.
“The thinking is, you bring in someone with political savvy to solve what is essentially a political problem,” Stripling said.
In making their choice of a new president, university leaders picked someone with experience managing a large, highly political organization, said UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein. The university budget, including its hospitals and medical centers, is more than $24 billion.
“It’s a dynamic position, and she is somebody who has experience managing big complex organizations,” Klein said.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
