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Her Game In 1994, the University of Wisconsin at Madison received its first invitation to the Rose Bowl. Last January, the University of Miami football Hurricanes blew through the Nebraska Cornhuskers to win its own Rose Bowl competition. At first, it seems as if the two events are unrelated—until you realize that both schools achieved this sports pinnacle after being associated with Donna Shalala. She was chancellor of UW Madison from 1987 to 1993, and in June 2001, she assumed the presidency of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The football successes are important because, as Shalala points out, the two areas perceived as weaknesses for women running major universities are overseeing college ath- letics and raising money. It hasn't been true for Shalala. While she was at the University of Wisconsin, various sports facilities were opened or renovated, football attendance increased substantially, and the hockey team won the NCAA championship. She was also successful in raising more than $400 million for the school's endowment and spearheading a $225 million state-private partnership program to upgrade the university's research facilities. While Shalala is probably best known for her stint as Secretary of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton, she has held other key roles in education and government as well. Her success in diverse environments has contributed to a winning formula in higher education. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS 2001- President, University of Miami 1993-2001 Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1987-1993 Chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Madison 1980-1987 President, Hunter College of the City University of New York 1977-1980 Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 1975-1977 Director and Treasurer of the Municipal Assistance Corporation of the City of New York 1972-1979 Associate Professor and Chair, Program in Politics and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University Education: A.B. degree in history from Western College for Women, Ph.D. from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University FOCUS: WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION BusinessWeek once named you one of the five best managers in higher education. What does it take to be a good manager in this field? A great deal of experience. Running a university is very different from managing a Cabinet department, because a university is so nonhierarchical. There are so many cen- ters of power. A university position requires more con- sensus-building, more interpersonal skills, and more attention to process. In addition, you can't have a con- trolling personality, or you'll get an ulcer. I once described myself as a tugboat captain, a world-class nudger. In your career, you've alternated between academ- ic and government environments. What skills have you been able to transfer between the two worlds? First of all, I think that academia made it easier for me to be an administrator in government, particularly in an umbrella cabinet department. Each agency has its own culture and own traditions, very much like higher educa- tion. There are large egos to manage. To get things done, you have to build a consensus and co-opt the bureaucra- cy. You have to have a good sense of humor. And you need a skill set that allows you to juggle a lot of things at once—the politics, the substance, the interpersonal mat- ters, the budget, and the policy questions. I've tried all sorts of approaches to building a consen- sus and promoting teamwork. For instance, in the gov- ernment, I got all the agency heads to sit in on each other's budget hearings. I made them build the budget for the department, using the same budget number that the Office of Management and Budget had given me. Over time, they began to listen carefully. They didn't necessarily favor huge increases in their own programs after they heard about other programs. The process also fostered collaboration because they heard about overlap- ping objectives and knew there were projects they could do together. As a university president, you have to possess very strong management skills. If you were teaching a management class right now, what would you con- sider the most important skill to impart? How to put decision-making systems in place so that people don't feel left out but decisions get made. The second skill would be how to delegate. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2002 19