It’s 293 steps from the front of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where University of Miami President Donna Shalala is revered, to the Carrier Dome, where she is reviled.

Only 293 steps from where Shalala earned a master’s and doctorate in social science to where she’s earned the venom of SU football fans.

Shalala was welcomed with cheers in 1995 when she spoke at SU’s commencement. If she returns, she’ll be welcomed with jeers.

On June 30, Shalala decided to rouse Miami from its 12-year roost in the Big East conference to nest with the ACC, decimating the Big East’s ability to field a competitive football conference. She wounded SU’s football program and the Big East, which continues to mull its survival options.

But once Shalala made her decision, few questioned her wisdom. No one more qualified to make it.

‘In the last analysis, she did what she thought was best for her university,’ Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw said in an e-mail. ‘I can’t argue with that.’

She’s worked under two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and has been president or chancellor at three schools. She’s currently a director of four companies. In 2002, she was named Woman of the Year by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami.

At Syracuse, she was known for spending an inordinate amount of time inside Maxwell. Shalala held both administrative assistant and teaching assistant positions for former dean Alan ‘Scotty’ Campbell.

Shalala performed a yeoman’s share of Campbell’s routine work and still calls Campbell her greatest mentor. In fulfilling her duties she was privy to nearly all of the important discussions and decisions that were made within the school.

‘When I came here in 1969, I can say that she was helping run the school,’ said Robert McClure, the senior associate dean at Maxwell.

‘She was a very bright girl, I’d say two or three notches above the normal student,’ said Guthrie Birkhead, a former professor at Maxwell who taught Shalala. ‘She took in everything from those meetings and has used it.’

The meetings and lessons learned at Maxwell helped Shalala launch a career in which she became the youngest woman to run an American university, becoming president of Hunter College in 1980 at 39 years old. She was also the first woman to run a Big Ten conference school, becoming chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987.

‘Have you seen her resume?’ asked Jeff Greene, the director of fundraising for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami. ‘It’s one of the most impressive resumes I’ve seen in my life. It’s unbelievable. The number of things she’s done with her life – it’s astronomical.’

Despite the ACC/Big East fiasco, Shaw, who worked closely with Shalala in Wisconsin, still counts her as a friend.

And in 1991, Shalala nearly found herself with Shaw’s job.

That year, Shaw was the president of all four University of Wisconsin schools. Shalala was chancellor at the largest, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was contacted about becoming chancellor at SU but asked that her name be withdrawn.

‘There was a point in my career where I would have given my eye teeth to lead Syracuse University,’ Shalala said on Feb. 10, 1991, to the Syracuse Post-Standard.

For Miami, the decision to join the ACC was financial. And while the complexity of the financial packages offered by the Big East and the ACC would befuddle most, Shalala had already run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Miami’s problems were a pittance compared to the $600 billion dollars she managed for HHS, which included money spent on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

‘In the grand scheme of things, deciding the fate of the Big East and ACC conferences is not a big decision,’ McClure said. ‘Her decisions when she was in charge of Health and Human Services had far-reaching effects. All the hype about sports has blown this decision up. She was just doing her job.’

After beginning the reform of the Medicare system and raising child immunization rates to an all-time high, the Washington Post called her ‘one of the most successful government managers of modern times.’

The major reason for her success is the boundless energy packed into Shalala’s 5-foot frame. When she was young, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner coached Shalala’s softball team, calling her a spark plug. She spent two years in the Peace Corps in Iran and has spent time climbing mountains.

‘She always stood out because of her enormous energy,’ McClure said. ‘She was naturally at the center of things. It was clear from the get-go. She’s a little dynamo.’

Shalala still plays tennis or golf two times a week and works out with a personal trainer.

Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where Shalala serves on a board, was a former tennis partner of Shalala’s before she moved to Miami. He raved about her endless energy on the court.

And while many school presidents make appearances at sporting events, Shalala has made it a point to immerse herself in the Miami football atmosphere. She wears an orange suit with a green scarf on game days. She flew to last year’s Fiesta Bowl with the band and holds tailgate parties with orange and green martinis.

‘I’ve never met a woman who knows sports like she does,’ Greene said. ‘You don’t see many presidents of big universities in there with students. You don’t see many other people period who go in there with the students.’

Despite the impressive resume, Shalala’s jobs have caused her integrity to be called into question.

During Clinton’s presidency she was criticized for how quickly she came to his defense after his infamous denial of ‘sexual relations’ with Monica Lewinsky. She reportedly chastised him later for lying.

Eighteen months before moving Miami to the ACC, Shalala told members of the Big East that her school had no intention of leaving the conference. Now, Shalala and Miami are targeted in a lawsuit for deceiving Big East’s schools about their intentions.

During the negotiation process, she told SU and Boston College that she wouldn’t move to the ACC without them. When bringing the two schools in bogged Miami down, Shalala cut them loose.

‘Shalala is going to have to look at the integrity issue that she’s been involved with 13 other presidents and going to have to factor in the irreparable harm that’s going to be caused to the members of my league,’ Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said at a press conference May 19.

Although SU was hurt by her decision, Shaw said he still believes in Shalala’s integrity.

Those who know Shalala believe she was answering to, and doing what was best for, her employers.

‘She’s a pragmatist,’ Mann said. ‘She deals in what’s possible, not in what’s utopian. I’m at a distance, but my guess is the sentiment on the board was probably more overwhelming than hers was. She put them on a more deliberate plan, but made the right decision for the university.’

In other words, old Syracuse loyalties weren’t going to stop her from doing the job her bosses required. And ironically, she started learning those qualities 293 steps from the Carrier Dome.

‘We try to get students to understand trade-offs, and how to make them with the public in mind,’ McClure said. ‘You can’t work in a meaningful administration, either public or private, without realizing trade-offs exist. Donna deals in the art of the possible.’

Published on September 23, 2003 at 12:00 pm