(Newser) – Janet Napolitano, who led the burgeoning Department of Homeland Security through a host of policy changes in the era after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, is resigning. Napolitano, just the third person to lead the decade-old department, told her senior staff today that she would be leaving to become the president of the University of California system. The university also announced Napolitano's nomination to be the 20th president of the statewide system.

“For more than four years I have had the privilege of serving President Obama and his administration,” Napolitano said in a written statement, as per Politico. She added that she was ready to move on “to play a role in educating our nation’s next generation of leaders.”