Donna Shalala

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Donna Edna Shalala (surname pronounced ; born February 14, 1941) has served as president of the University of Miami, a private university in Coral Gables, Florida, since 2001. Her career has featured some positional success but, in nearly all of these professional roles, extensive controversy.

Prior to her appointment as University of Miami President, she served for eight years as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Clinton.

Shalala is an honorary board member of the American Iranian Council, an organization that seeks to promote closer U.S.-Iran relations at a time when official U.S. policy is strengthening sanctions and seeking to isolate Iran over its support of terrorist groups and its development of nuclear weapons. She is also a member on the board of directors for Gannett Company.

Early life

Shalala was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Lebanese immigrant parents and has a twin sister, Diane Fritel. She graduated from West Tech High School and received her bachelor's degree in 1962 from Western College for Women (which, in 1976, was merged with Miami University in Oxford, Ohio).

She served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps in Iran from 1962 to 1964, where she worked with other volunteers to construct an agricultural college. She received a Master's and then, in 1970, a Doctorate degree from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

Academic career

Shalala did not hold a full-time, paying job until she was 30. At that age, she began a series of affiliations with several colleges. Her first such job was teaching politics at Baruch College (part of CUNY), where she also was a member of the American Federation of Teachers union. In 1972, Shalala became a professor of politics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, a job she held until 1979. Concurrently, from 1977 to 1980, she served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Carter administration.

Shalala's first experience with academic administration came in 1980 when she became the 10th President of Hunter College, serving in this capacity until 1988.

She next served as Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her policies were a source of great controversy, with one being overruled by a court and another being revoked by a subsequent administration.

Under her chancellorship and with her support, the University adopted a broad speech code subjecting students to disciplinary action for communications that were perceived as hate speech. That speech code was later found unconstitutional by a federal judge. Also while chancellor, Shalala supported passage of a revised faculty speech code broadly restricting "harmful" speech in both "noninstructional" and "instructional" settings. The faculty speech code was abolished ten years later, after a number of professors were investigated for alleged or suspected violations.

Secretary of Health and Human Services

Following a year serving as Chair of the Children's Defense Fund (1992-1993), Shalala was appointed United States Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. She served in this role for all eight years of his administration, becoming the nation's longest serving HHS Secretary. In 1996 Shalala was the first female designated survivor during President Clinton's state of union address.

In her role as HHS Secretary, Shalala frequently drew criticism from political conservatives and moderates for her liberal positions. The Washington Post labeled her "one of the most controversial Clinton Cabinet nominees--one who had been branded by critics as being too liberal and politically correct."

However, Shalala was also known for her fervent anti-drug stance, though a number of conservatives considered the Clinton administration's anti-drug policies weak. During this period, Clinton himself famously admitted in a laughing manner to having taken the drug.

Shalala was also criticized for her denial of support for Dr. Paul Farmer, the subject of the award-winning book Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder

University of Miami

Academic ratings

Since Shalala's 2001 appointment, UM has progressed modestly in its national academic standing, as assessed by U.S. News & World Report, moving up 14 spots, from 66th (in 2001) to 52nd (in 2007) among 254 "National Universities," though this "National Universities" category fails to include most of the nation's top universities and colleges, which are placed in other categories by the magazine. However, UM continues to be surpassed academically by many universities and colleges with smaller tuitions and less financial resources.

She created a UM fundraising campaign called "Momentum," designed to raise UM's endowment from approximately $750 million to $1 billion; the goal was later increased to $1.25 billion by the end of 2007, though the endowment has not yet reached even the $1 billion mark.

U.S. News & World Report ranked UM's School of Business Administration as the 44th best business school in the nation. Also, UM's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which is affiliated with UM's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine was ranked the best hospital in the nation for opthalmology.

Every spring semester at the University of Miami, Shalala teaches a course covering the United States healthcare system, drawing on her expertise after serving as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

University of Miami controversies

Custodial wages strike

In early 2006, under Shalala's leadership, the university was involved in a custodial workers' strike, a dispute between the university's then non-unionized custodial workers (now represented by the SEIU labor union) and the university's contractor, UNICCO. The strike, which lasted from February 28 to May 1, 2006, generated extensive campus and off-campus criticism of Shalala and UNICCO's labor relationship with its UM-based custodians. While various studies had shown that UM's custodial workers were among the lowest paid university-based custodians in the nation, Shalala and her administration failed to act on any of these reports until the nationally-publicized strike prompted her to then raise wages.

Shalala also drew criticism from some striking workers and protesters for appearing to take the side of UM's contractor on how a union vote should be taken and for not acting earlier to prevent the strike, following the publication of a report that had clearly revealed that UM's custodial workers were not earning a living wage

Living it up: the 9,000 square foot mansion

At the same moment as Shalala was being criticized for her historical refusal, or failure, to respond to the various studies revealing UM failed to pay its custodial workers a living wage or provide them with health benefits, The New York Times Magazine published a profile of Shalala's lavish lifestyle as UM's President. Featuring a picture of Shalala with her feet up on a wooden table, surrounded by lavish art and furniture, the article profiled Shalala's pride in her 9,000 foot mansion, her 29-foot motorboat (which is pictured in the article), and her collection of fine antiques and Lenox china. In the article, Shalala admits her least favorite chore is making her bed, but admits that "fortunately someone comes around and makes it for me."

While pointing out the obvious contrast with UM students, who graduate with higher amounts of college-related debt than any university in the nation, Shalala boasted of her recent purchase of a 1790 French cabinet, which she says she purchased from the estate of the former publisher of the Washington Post. She admitted, however, that she rarely uses her motorboat, which seats 12, and purchased it only because she had a dock.

Overseeing demise of a football dynasty

While the success of a university's football program, like many aspects of a university, is a product of many factors and not exclusively its President, one of the most notable developments on Shalala's watch has been the steady erosion of the university's once hugely successful football program. Prior to Shalala's arrival, UM had won four national championships and won another one in Shalala's first semester as President, all in less than 20 years. Since then, however, the program has been on a steady demise. The team has failed to reach a BCS bowl game in the last four years (2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006). In 2006, the team recorded one of its worst records of the past 25 years, finishing 6-6. Shalala fired accomplished head coach Larry Coker following the disappointing 2006 season. Highlighting the lack of communication between Shalala and Coker, Coker was quoted on ESPN following the final 2006 regular season game as saying he was sure he would return as head coach in 2007, and then was embarrassingly fired days later by Shalala.

Since Coker's firing, the program has deteriorated even further, registering a 5-7 losing record in 2007 and failing to qualify for any bowl game. In the team's final appearance in the Orange Bowl, they lost 48-0 to unranked Virginia, the worst loss for the program in over 60 years. Five of Miami's 2007 losses came to unranked teams (three of which were Orange Bowl home games). Given that UM once held one of the longest running home winning streaks in all of sports, three losses at home to unranked opponents would have been considered unthinkable prior to the program's steady erosion, beginning in 2002. The program has also made other questionable decisions, such as its 2007 decision to remove the names of players' names from the back of jerseys, which is highly unusual in Division I football and makes the game vastly more difficult to follow for fans.

The demise of UM as a football powerhouse has also proven financially painful to UM. As the team has become less and less competitive, fewer and fewer fans are attending games. Once known for fairly regularly selling out the 70,000-plus Orange Bowl, less than 37,000 fans attended a fairly critical divisional game on November 3 (which Miami lost). Once a regular feature on national television's coverage of collegiate football, UM has incrementally made fewer and fewer such appearances over the past five years. Perhaps most costly, in its failure to make a major bowl game in the past five years, UM has lost the millions of dollars and the recruiting prestige that accompanies BCS bowl appearances. Despite the team's horrible 2007 performance, in which it lost to mediocre programs and failed to make even a small-scale post-season bowl, Shalala has expressed no formal disappointment over the program's demise or stated any expectation for its improvement. Nor has she dismissed the coach who oversaw the 2007 disaster.

Losing the Orange Bowl

Shalala also played a critical role in the failure of the university to reach terms to date with the Orange Bowl. Unless reversed, the decision will mark the end of one of professional and college football's most renowned stadiums, which has been host to Super Bowls and played a hugely prominent role in UM's dynasty years.

While the Orange Bowl is in need of some restoration and additions, including additional restrooms and a replay monitor, Shalala proved unable to reach terms with the Orange Bowl to get these restorations completed. The result is that, unless terms are met to continue the Orange Bowl affiliation, UM will be forced to move to Dolphin Stadium, which is over 25 miles away from the Coral Gables campus, is used by two other professional teams, is not a football-only field, and which UM has no historical relationship. The Orange Bowl, in turn, will likely be destroyed, unless a last minute agreement is made to salvage the relationship between UM and the historic stadium, marking the end of one of the nation's best known sports venues.

Co-chair of Presidential Commission

On March 6, 2007 President George W. Bush named Shalala and Bob Dole to head a presidential commission called the President's Commission On Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors. The commission was formed in response to a growing outcry over the care of wounded outpatient soldiers, but has left even less time for Shalala's role as University of Miami President.

The commission includes seven other members, ranging from injured war veterans to the wife of a wounded staff sergeant who suffered burns across 70 percent of his body. Demands for corrective action arose after the Washington Post exposed living conditions in a decrepit Army-owned building just outside Walter Reed Hospital and highlighted obstacles and delays in the treatment of soldiers who suffered serious injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. The commission subsequently issued several recommendations for improvement of these facilities.

Personal

Shalala is of Lebanese descent. She has never been married and has no children. Her sexuality is a purported "matter of dispute.

She serves on the board of the Albert Shanker Institute, a small, three-member staff organization named for the former head of the American Federation of Teachers.

Notes

External links

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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 23:45:18 PDT (GMT -0700)
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