Keynote Speakers
Donna E. Shalala
President
University of Miami
Exclusively Represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau
Donna E. Shalala became the fifth president of the University of Miami on June 1, 2001. Shalala has more than 25 years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher and administrator. She is also a professor of political science, epidemiology and public health, and education.
Born in Cleveland, President Shalala earned an Artium Baccalaureus (Bachelor of Arts) degree in history from Western College for Women and a doctorate from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. A leading scholar on the political economy of state and local governments, she has held tenured professorships at Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as president of Hunter College at CUNY from 1980 to 1987 and as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993.
Shalala also served the Carter administration as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 1993, President Clinton appointed her Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). She served for eight years, becoming the longest serving HHS secretary in U.S. history. At the beginning of her tenure, HHS had a budget of nearly $600 billion and administered a wide variety of programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Child Care and Head Start, Welfare, the Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As HHS secretary, Shalala directed the welfare reform process, made health insurance available to an estimated 3.3 million children through the approval of State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), raised child immunization rates to the highest levels in history, led major reforms of the FDA’s drug approval process and food safety system, revitalized the NIH, and directed a major management and policy reform of Medicare. At the end of her tenure as HHS secretary, The Washington Post described her as “one of the most successful government managers of modern times.”
She is a director of Gannett Co., Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Inc., and the Lennar Corporation. She also serves as a trustee of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Shalala has more than three dozen honorary degrees and a host of other honors, including the 2002 UCSF Medal, the 1992 National Public Service Award, and the 1994 Glamour magazine Woman of the Year Award. In October 2005, US News & World Report named her one of “America’s 25 Best Leaders.” She has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and has been elected to the National Academy of Education, the National Academy of Public Administration, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.
