The second dean to announce their resignation this semester, Candis Claiborn of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture said there’s no bad blood between herself and WSU administration.

Claiborn said she hasn’t talked to Lawrence Pintak, the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication dean who announced his resignation in January, but that there was no pressure for her to leave her position and she does not know of any connection between the two circumstances aside from taking advantage of reallocation of power.

“Any time there’s a change in administration it’s a good time for change in leadership,” Claiborn said.

Claiborn, the university’s longest-serving dean, will step down from her post at the end of her term in August.

“I can’t believe 10 years has passed,” she said.

Claiborn said she will miss the team and the support in the dean’s office, as well as working with external stakeholders and corporations that work with the college and hire students.

She led the Voiland College through economic struggles in 2008 and blazed a trail as one of the United States’ few female engineering deans, according to a WSU news release.

Claiborn will return to a faculty position at the department of civil and environmental engineering, and will continue to conduct air quality research in the Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, according to the release.

To her knowledge, no one has been selected to take her place. She said she hopes her eventual replacement looks at the Spokane medical school as an opportunity to participate in science and engineering, and that they will work with leadership to shore up budgets.

Reporting by Hannah Street