Radcliffe To Honor Shalala

Former Health and Human Services Secretary and current President of the University of Miami Donna E. Shalala will be honored with the Radcliffe Institute Medal tomorrow at the annual Radcliffe Day luncheon.

She will also deliver the event’s keynote address.

The medal honors individuals “whose life and work have substantially and positively influenced society,” according to Radcliffe officials.

Over the course of the Cleveland native’s career, Shalala has stood at the helm of New York’s Hunter College as its president and the University of Wisconsin-Madison as its chancellor.

She has also held professorships at the three schools she has led, as well as at Columbia University, Yale Law School, and Baruch College in New York City.

In addition to navigating the politics of higher education, Shalala was assistant secretary for policy development and research in the department of Housing and Urban Development in the late 1980s.

She served as secretary of the department of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001 and led a commission to investigate health care for veterans under George W. Bush.

Shalala’s list of honors and accolades is similarly lengthy (she has earned 43 honorary degrees, though none from Harvard). Born to Lebanese parents, she has often been praised for her devotion to advancing women and minorities.

Though widely lauded for her devotion to higher education and public service, the Washington Post has billed Shalala as “one of the most controversial Clinton Cabinet nominees—one who had been branded by critics as being too liberal and politically correct.”

During her time at the University of Wisconsin, she launched both an aggressive anti-hate speech campaign and a plan to double the number of minority undergraduates at the school.

Both of these moves sparked debate, and the first was overturned by a federal judge as unconstitutional. But the sentiment behind these moves—to help advance minorities—as well as her attention to other overlooked communities is what Radcliffe cites as the most important parts of her legacy.

Last year, the medal was given to Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.