Columbia University Provost Claude Steele, the second-ranking officer at the college in New York, is stepping down to take a job at Stanford University.

Steele, who came to Columbia from Stanford in 2009, is returning to become dean of the School of Education at the university near Palo Alto, California, he said in an e-mail to Columbia faculty and students. He starts later this year.

Steele, 65, is a psychologist and the first black provost of Columbia. He spent 18 years at Stanford, where he was director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, before leaving for Columbia. The Stanford position is a chance to help shape education policy “at this critical time in our nation’s history,” Steele said in the e-mail.

“It is an important time to be rejoining that vital mission,” Steele said. “Nothing less than this rare opportunity to do so at such a strong school of education could have lured me away from my current position at Columbia.”