2007 Selection Jury

The Selection Jury is comprised of nationally prominent individuals from business and industry, government and public service. The Jury reviews the statistical data and site visit reports for each finalist district and chooses the winner of The Broad Prize.

Henry Cisneros, Chairman and CEO, CityView America (recused in 2007)
Henry Cisneros is founder, chairman and chief executive officer of CityView America, a joint venture in home building he formed with Kaufman and Broad (now KB Home) in 2000. Previously, he was president and chief operating officer of Univision Communications in Los Angeles, the largest Spanish-language media company in the nation. In 1993, he became President William J. Clinton's first secretary of housing and urban development. Cisneros became the first Hispanic mayor of a major U.S. city when he was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1981. During his four terms as mayor, Cisneros helped rebuild the city's economic base and created jobs through massive infrastructure and downtown improvements.

John Engler, Former Governor of Michigan
John Engler is president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, the nation's largest industrial trade association. Formerly governor of Michigan since 1990, Engler led the state for 12 years. His administration made improving education Michigan's top priority. In 1994, Engler led a successful fight for equitable school funding. As a result, all Michigan children now have a foundation grant that follows them to attend the public schools of their choice. Engler is a co-founder of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, a national effort dedicated to improving student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders.

Susan Hockfield, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a noted neuroscientist, Susan Hockfield is the first life scientist to lead the university. She also holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience in the department of brain and cognitive sciences, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Before assuming the presidency of MIT, she was provost at Yale University, where she had taught and served as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. After earning her Ph.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Hockfield served as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco and then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

James Hunt, Jr., Former Governor of North Carolina
James Hunt is currently a partner in the in the Raleigh, N.C. office of the law firm of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge and Rice and chairman of the board of the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy. Formerly governor of North Carolina, Hunt is a respected national leader in education reform. During his 20 years of service as governor, he dramatically raised North Carolina's student test scores and ensured that teacher salaries were raised to match the national average. A strong supporter of high standards in public schools, Hunt served as chairman of the National Education Goals Panel and vice chairman of the board of Achieve. He also published a book outlining his plan and describing his own experiences with public education, "First in America: An Education Governor Challenges North Carolina."

Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The 18th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Shirley Ann Jackson has held senior leadership positions in government, industry, research and academia. She was appointed chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Clinton, where from 1995-1999, she reorganized the agency and completely revamped its regulatory approach. Prior to that, she was a theoretical physicist at the former AT&T Bell Laboratories and a professor of theoretical physics at Rutgers University.

Roderick Paige, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
Rod Paige currently serves as chairman and founder of the Chartwell Education Group, a firm working to advance the systemic improvement of education domestically and globally through providing education-related consulting services to state and local government, foundations, corporations, and even countries seeking American education as a model. Building on a long and distinguished career in public education, Rod Paige was the first school superintendent ever to serve as U.S. secretary of education. Serving under President George W. Bush's first term, Paige played a critical role in the passage and implementation of the historic No Child Left Behind legislation. In 1994, after leading reform for four years as a member of the Houston Board of Education, Paige became superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. In 2001, he was named National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators. In 2002, he received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. That same year, Houston won the inaugural Broad Prize. Prior to joining Houston Independent School District, Paige served for a decade as dean of the College of Education at Texas Southern University.

Richard Riley, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
Richard Riley is currently a partner in the law firm Nelson, Mullins, Riley, and Scarborough. As governor of South Carolina during the 1980s, Riley won national recognition for successfully improving the state's educational system. He became the first governor in South Carolina history to be elected to a second term after voters passed an amendment to the constitution allowing him to run a second time. Riley was then chosen by President Bill Clinton in 1992 to serve as U.S. secretary of education. During his eight-year tenure, Riley helped launch historic initiatives to raise academic standards and improve instruction for poor and disadvantaged children. He also expanded grant and loan programs to help more Americans go to college, prepare young people for the world of work and improve teaching. Since leaving his national post in 2001, Riley continues to serve on a number of boards and work with a variety of entities to improve education across America.

Donna Shalala, Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (recused in 2007)
Donna Shalala began her commitment to public service early as one of the country's first Peace Corps volunteers, serving in Iran from 1962 to 1964. Currently president of the University of Miami, Shalala has more than 25 years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher and administrator. In 1993, President Clinton appointed her secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where she served for eight years, becoming the longest serving HHS Secretary in U.S. history. Shalala also served in the Carter Administration as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Andrew Stern, International President, Service Employees International Union
Andy Stern is the international president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest and fastest-growing labor union in America. The SEIU represents more than 1.5 million working families, including health care workers, education workers, and other public service employees as well as building service and security workers. SEIU is a leading voice for quality education, affordable health care, and other vital services for working families and their communities.

Mark Warner, Former Governor of Virginia
Mark Warner is currently the honorary chair of Forward Together, a federal leadership political action committee. In his four years as governor of Virginia, Gov. Warner made education a priority. Turning around an inherited $6 billion budget shortfall, he invested the surplus in K-12 public education and into one of the nation's premier public college and university systems. While in office, Gov. Warner chaired the National Governors Association and led a national high school reform effort to meet the challenges of a global economy. A former high-tech business executive, Gov. Warner co-founded the company that became Nextel and the largest technology-based venture capital fund in the mid-Atlantic.