2006.08.27: August 27, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Iran: University Administration: Miami Herald: Donna Shalala boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Iran: Special Report: Iran RPCV, Cabinet Member, and University President Donna Shalala: February 9, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: RPCV Donna Shalala (Iran) : 2006.08.27: August 27, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Iran: University Administration: Miami Herald: Donna Shalala boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

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Donna Shalala boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

Donna Shalala boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

Throughout her career, Shalala has embraced pragmatism and personal connections over ideology. Her signature accomplishment under Clinton was a set of sweeping changes to welfare that infuriated her party's left wing. ''I can't be labeled, and that's part of the problem,'' she said in July when she sat down for an interview. ``People's perception is different than the reality. The reality is I'm pragmatic and I like to get things done and I care a lot about the institutions that I work at.'' University of Miami President and former Clinton Cabinet member Donna Shalala served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran in the 1960's.

Donna Shalala boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

Shalala at 5 years

She boosted UM's image by raising a billion dollars, weathering a tense labor dispute along the way

BY NOAH BIERMAN
nbierman@MiamiHerald.com

Donna Shalala's staff had been discouraging interview requests, but she had a talk to give.

''My biggest problem coming to town,'' the University of Miami president boldly told a crowd on the top floor of a Brickell Avenue bank, ``is how flashy I am.

''People always want to do a story on me,'' she continued, insisting that she prefers to deflect attention to others.

Her talk at the Women Executive Leadership program in late May came just weeks after a contentious strike on her campus ended, her first big whiff of adverse publicity since she left President Clinton's Cabinet five years ago to run UM.

Student and worker protesters had occupied the administration building, held a vigil outside Shalala's home and staged hunger strikes in a make-shift ''Freedom Village'' along U.S. 1 to dramatize the plight of janitors who clean and garden UM property.

Before the strike, Shalala was not so media-shy. In February, she let The New York Times Magazine into her presidential home on Old Cutler Road for a feature on her lavish lifestyle. The article later became a focal point for those who said UM wasn't doing enough to ensure its outsourced workers were paid a living wage. And the strike itself became a national story.

''Overexposure becomes the danger,'' she explained to the crowd of women execs. ``The way everybody else gets the publicity is by taking a shot at the visible person.''

Despite a few such shots, Shalala, 65, remains a popular figure on the campus and in the community. She is the only college president who rivals the state's football coaches for name recognition.

Shalala's five-foot frame and frenetic motion are immediately recognizable -- either in person, accompanied by Sebastian the Ibis mascot, or on a giant downtown billboard with a Miami Heat player.

But those who assumed Clinton's former Health and Human Services Secretary would be a voice of political liberalism on campus pegged her wrong. When some of her old friends came from Washington to rally the campus' historically underpaid workers, they left frustrated with Shalala's response.

''I don't understand it,'' said John Edwards, the Democrats' most recent vice presidential candidate. ''Here's somebody who has a background as a Democratic political person who has in the past demonstrated a great interest in the health and welfare of working people in an admirable way and she deserves credit for that. I have no idea why she took the actions she did'' during the janitors' strike.

But throughout her career, Shalala has embraced pragmatism and personal connections over ideology. Her signature accomplishment under Clinton was a set of sweeping changes to welfare that infuriated her party's left wing.

''I can't be labeled, and that's part of the problem,'' she said in July when she sat down for an interview. ``People's perception is different than the reality. The reality is I'm pragmatic and I like to get things done and I care a lot about the institutions that I work at.''

[Excerpt]

For more than two decades, she has taken annual hiking trips around the globe -- this year's trek was to Mongolia -- with a group of national power brokers, including Carol Bellamy, a former head of UNICEF and the Peace Corps; Molly Ivins, a nationally syndicated political columnist; and Mary Doyle, the sister of Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and the former dean of the UM law school.





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Story Source: Miami Herald

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