Three Maxwell Alumni to be honored during Orange Central

Three Maxwell alumni will be honored during events at this year's Orange Central Homecoming.  Among the alumni receiving this year's prestigious George Arents Award for Excellence - Syracuse University’s highest alumni honor - is Donna Shalala ’70 MSSc/’70 PhD (SSc)/’87 Hon, President of the Clinton Foundation.  Molly Corbett Broad ’62 BA (Econ)/'09 Hon, President of the American Council on Education, will be celebrated at the Melvin A. Eggers Senior Alumni Luncheon.  Muss Akram ’10 BA IR, Senior Associate at Strategy&, will receive the Generation Orange Award for graduates of the past 10 years.  All these events are open to anyone attending Orange Central.

Donna Shalala

Donna Shalala has more than 40 years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator.  Recently named president and CEO of the Clinton Foundation, she had served as president of the University of Miami since 2001 and is on leave as the Trustee Professor of Political Science and Health Policy.  For eight years prior to coming to Miami, she was Health and Human Services Secretary under President Bill Clinton.  She has held tenured professorships at Columbia University, the City University of New York, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993 and president of Hunter College 1980 to 1987.

Shalala has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran in the 1960s. She earned a B.A. degree in history from Western College for Women and a Ph.D. degree from the Maxwell School.

The Arents Award is the University’s highest alumni honor. It is named for George Arents, a successful manufacturer who served on the University Board of Trustees from 1930 until his death in 1960. 

Molly Corbett Broad

A leading spokesperson for American higher education, Molly Corbett Broad became the twelfth president of the American Council on Education (ACE)—and the first woman to lead the organization—in 2008.  Previous to ACE she served as president of the University of North Carolina from 1997-2006, leading UNC through a period of unprecedented enrollment growth.  Broad held a number of administrative and executive positions at several universities prior to her tenure at UNC.  At the California State University system, she served as executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer from 1993 until her election as UNC president.and as senior vice chancellor for administration and finance from 1992 to 1993.  Earlier in her career, Broad served as the chief executive officer for Arizona’s three-campus university system (1985–92) and in a succession of administrative posts at Syracuse University (1971–85).

Broad graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in economics from the Maxwell School. She holds a master’s degree in the field from The Ohio State University.

Established in 1988 by Chancellor Emeritus William P. Tolley, the Melvin A. Eggers Senior Alumni Award "was created out of my deep respect and admiration for Chancellor Eggers and to honor senior alumni whose leadership and service to society has been joined with loyalty and service to Syracuse University."    

Muss Akram

Muss Akram, a 2010 graduate, takes great pride in being a Syracuse University alum.  Having earned a B.A. in international relations from the Maxwell School and a B.S. in chemical engineering, Akram is a senior associate at Strategy&, part of the PwC Network (formerly Booz & Company), based in Houston, Texas. In this role, he works to solve complex, unstructured problems for power companies as the nature of energy production and consumption shifts.  Prior to joining Strategy&, Akram was a consulting services manager at PowerAdvocate, helping utility clients nationwide improve their operations.

Akram believes all alumni have a responsibility to ensure that students continue to have high-quality educational opportunities. He is a member of the Engineering and Computer Science Young Alumni Board and provided the support for Engineering Meets Business, a program he developed with the college to prepare forward-thinking engineers for ever-evolving industry challenges.

“It was the vision of those who came before us that helped create SU and gave us the platform for our starts,” he says. “It’s on us to do the same for future students, so the SU community can keep coming together and providing an interconnected world for generations to come.”

Introduced in fall 2013, the Generation Orange Award recognizes Generation Orange alumni who have made an impact on campus and in their communities through their volunteer work and philanthropy on behalf of Syracuse University. 09/28/15