Donna Shalala was born in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1962, after graduating from Western College for Women in Ohio with a B.A. in Urban Studies, she volunteered for the U.S. Peace Corps and spent two years in the Middle East, teaching in Iran. From 1966 to 1970, she served as assistant to the director of the Metropolitan Studies Program, lecturer in social science and assistant to the dean at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse. Shalala earned her Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1970.
Secretary Shalala has been a scholar, teacher, and a public administrator. In 1970, she taught political science for two years at Bernard Baruch College, and between 1972 and 1979 taught politics and education at Teachers College at Columbia University. From 1975-1977, she served as Treasurer of New York City's Municipal Assistance Corporation, the organization that helped rescue the city from near bankruptcy. She was an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Carter Administration. She served as president of Hunter College for seven years (1980-1987), the youngest woman ever to lead a U.S. college. As Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987-1993, she was the first woman to head a Big Ten University and was named by Business Week as one of the five best managers in higher education. Shalala served for more than a decade on the board of the Children's Defense Fund, succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as chair in 1992.
Shalala is the longest serving Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in U.S. history. She was sworn in in January 1993 and since then has led the Clinton administration’s efforts to reform the nation’s welfare system and improve health care while containing health costs. In Shalala’s six years as Secretary, she has made improving the quality of life for American children her highest priority. Under her leadership, HHS has guided the approval of the Clinton Health Insurance Plan, raised the child immunization rates and led the fight against youth tobacco use.
Secretary Shalala has more than two dozen honorary degrees and a many other honors, including the 1992 National Public Service Award and the Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year Award in 1994. She has been elected to the National Academy of Education, the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences. She has written four books, and enjoys golf, tennis, mountain climbing and reading in her free time.
