Donna Shalala

Shalala was born in Cleveland, Ohio, of Maronite Catholic Lebanese descent.[2] Her father sold real estate;[3] and her mother, one of the first Lebanese-Americans to graduate from Ohio State University,[4] was a teacher who worked two jobs and attended law school at night.[3][4] She has a twin sister, Diane Fritel.[5][6]

Shalala attended West Technical High School where she was the editor of the school newspaper.[5] She received a bachelor's degree in 1962 from Western College for Women.[lower-alpha 1][8] From 1962 to 1964, she was among the first volunteers to serve in the Peace Corps.[9][10] Her placement took her to Iran where she worked with other volunteers to construct an agricultural college.[9] In 1970, she earned a Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.[11]

Shalala began her teaching career as a political science professor at Baruch College (part of the City University of New York), 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 post she held until 1979.[12] Shalala became the only woman on the Municipal Assistance Corporation, a group tasked with saving the city during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis.[3] 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.[13]

Shalala's first experience with academic administration came on October 8, 1980, when she became the tenth president of Hunter College, serving in this capacity until 1988.[14][15]

Shalala next served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1988–1993).[16] At the time of her chancellorship, the university included 42,000 students, employed 16,500 people, and had an annual budget of $1 billion.[3] She was the first woman to lead a Big Ten Conference school, and only the second woman in the country to head a major research university.[17]

Under Shalala's 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.[18] 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.[19] As Madison chancellor, Shalala, with then athletic director Pat Richter, interviewed and hired football coach Barry Alvarez who went on to become Wisconsin's all-time leader in football wins, with numerous appearances by Wisconsin at the Rose Bowl.[20]

Shalala during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Shalala with President Bill Clinton in 1993

Shalala with then Senator Joe Biden and Janet Reno in 1999

Following a year serving as chair of the Children's Defense Fund (1992–1993), Shalala was nominated in 1992 by President-elect Bill Clinton for the position of United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.[3] The Washington Post labeled her "one of the most controversial Clinton Cabinet nominees".[18] Her nomination went before the Senate Finance Committee in January 1993,[5] and the Senate voted to confirm her on January 22, 1993.[21] At the start of Shalala's tenure, the Department of Health and Human Services employed 125,000 people and had a budget of $539 billion.[3]

Shalala served as HHS secretary for eight years during the Clinton administration, becoming the nation's longest-serving HHS secretary.[22] In 1996, Shalala was the designated survivor during Clinton's State of the Union address.[23] She is the first Lebanese-American to serve in a Cabinet position.[24]

In 2001, Shalala joined the boards of UnitedHealth and Lennar, where over the following decade she earned millions of dollars.[25][26] Shalala was paid almost a half-million dollars in 2010 to serve on the boards of three companies, two of which were run by UM trustees.[27]

When she left Lennar in 2012, the company reported it was to avoid a "conflict of interest." Lennar's CEO, Stuart Miller, had joined the UM Board of Trustees in 2002. Shalala rejoined Lennar in 2017 after she was no longer President of the University.[28] And she has been member of the advisory board of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

In 2001, Shalala became president of the University of Miami.[29] She created a University of Miami fundraising campaign called "Momentum," designed to raise the university's endowment from approximately $750 million to $1 billion; the goal was later increased to $1.25 billion by the end of 2007.[30]

In 2013, the University of Miami sold 88 acres of undeveloped Pine Rocklands, one of the last remnants of the imperiled habitat in Miami-Dade County outside of Everglades National Park, to Ram Realty Services, for $22 million. The Miami New Times described this amount as "a complete steal for the developer in light of the relative worth of nearby property." Also in 2013, Ram Realty and Lennar Corp worked on at least one project together in North Carolina.[28] When Shalala ran for the U.S. Congress in 2018, her candidacy was opposed by local environmentalists for her part in the sale of the University of Miami pine rocklands site.[28]

Shalala faced some criticism for her response to a nationally publicized custodial workers' strike at the University of Miami, which lasted from February 28, 2006, until May 1, 2006. Critics called the University of Miami's custodial workers among the lowest paid university-based custodians in the nation and alleged they were not earning a living wage. The strike prompted Shalala to raise wages. Shalala was also criticized for living in luxury while the custodians did not have health insurance.[31] Shalala criticized union organizer's tactics, including a sit-in that she said prevented students from attending classes.[31]

On September 8, 2014, Shalala announced that she would be stepping down at the end of the 2014–2015 academic year.[32]

In 2015, Shalala took a leave of absence from her tenured professorship at the University of Miami to volunteer for the Clinton Foundation.[33] She followed her tenure as president of the University of Miami by being named chief executive officer of the Foundation,[34] serving in that capacity from 2015 to 2017.[35][36]

According to The New York Times, Chelsea Clinton helped persuade Shalala to leave the University of Miami, move to New York and head the foundation.[37] Shalala maintained a home in Miami and taught part-time at UM while heading the foundation in New York.[33]

Shalala led the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton was a leading candidate and the propriety of the foundation's activity came under scrutiny.[33] In a September 14, 2016, interview on MSNBC, Shalala admitted that there was “no question” that donors to the Clinton Foundation had been given “courtesy appointments” in the State Department while Hillary Clinton ran that department.[38] Shalala oversaw the termination of the Clinton Global Initiative during her tenure as CEO,[33] as well as other reductions in operations intended to avoid conflicts of interest if Clinton won the election.[39] She resisted calls by The Washington Post and USA Today to shut down the foundation entirely, arguing that "there are human beings around the world who would be affected by these decisions."[40]

Shalala left the Clinton Foundation in April 2017 to return to her full-time teaching position at the University of Miami, replacing her former HHS deputy Kevin Thurm.[33]

• List of female United States Cabinet members
• List of Arab and Middle Eastern Americans in the United States Congress
• Women in the United States House of Representatives

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Donna Shalala.

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
• Profile at Vote Smart
• President Donna E. Shalala Biography, University of Miami.
• "America's Best Leaders: Q&A with Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami, U.S. News & World Report, October 22, 2005.
• President Donna E. Shalala Collection, 1980–1988, Hunter College Archives and Special Collections
• Appearances on C-SPAN