Claire Shipman

Claire Shipman (born October 4, 1962) is an American television journalist and the former senior national correspondent for ABC's ''Good Morning America''. Shipman is acting as president of Columbia University as of March 2025. She was previously co-chair of the university's Board of Trustees in 2023.

Early life and education

Shipman, born October 4, 1962, in Washington, D.C., is the daughter of Christie (Armstrong) and Morgan Enlow Shipman, a law professor at Ohio State University. She was raised in Columbus, Ohio.

She graduated from Worthington High School in Worthington, Ohio, in 1980. She is a 1986 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University with a degree in Russian Studies and also earned a Master of International Affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 1994.

Career

Journalism

Shipman began her career in journalism at CNN as an intern, where she covered the White House and international events. In 1990, she received a Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award and an Emmy for her reporting on the Tiananmen Square protests.

She spent five years at CNN's Moscow bureau covering the August 1991 Soviet coup attempt and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union. Shipman received a Peabody Award in 1991 as part of the CNN team that covered the failed coup and in 1993, she earned the medal "Defender of a Free Russia" from Russian President Boris Yeltsin for her reporting of the event.

She worked at NBC from 1997 to 2001 and covered the White House during the Clinton administration. Shipman joined ABC News in 2001, reporting on politics, international affairs and social issues.

Shipman has stated that Carney, her husband and White House Press Secretary at the time, gave her no indication that the secret operation that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden was under way in Pakistan.

Along with co-author Katty Kay, a BBC journalist, she has written three ''New York Times'' bestselling books, '' Womenomics'' (2009), ''The Confidence Code'' (2014), and ''The Confidence Code for Girls'' (2018).

In 2018, she attended the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference and conducted interviews on stage with US politicians Marco Rubio, Chris Coons, Tom Cotton, and Grace Meng.

Columbia University

Shipman joined the board of trustees of Columbia University in 2013 and became a co-chair in 2023. Her tenure's span included the 2024 pro-Palestinian campus occupations during which the NYPD entered the campus and arrested dozens of students for protesting to pressure Columbia to divest from companies benefiting from Israeli apartheid and for government officials to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war.

Acting president

On March 28, 2025, Shipman, then serving as co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, was made acting president of the university amid turmoil from protests in solidarity with Palestine and crackdowns from the Trump administration, which had cut US$400 million in federal funding from Columbia. She took over for interim president Katrina Armstrong, who stepped down suddenly after what the Trump administration's Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism called a "concerning revelation" earlier that week, ostensibly a call with faculty in which she downplayed Columbia's commitment to its concessions to the Trump administration. The announcement was made by her co-chair David Greenwald, who then became the sole chair of the board of trustees.

Review of the University Senate

Shortly after delivering her first address as acting president in her first meeting with the University Senate on April 4, acting president Shipman announced on April 18 that the University Senate—a policymaking body composed of faculty members and students established for shared governance after the 1968 Columbia University protests—would be subject to review. According to ''The New York Times'', the move is an "effort to potentially diminish the university senate’s authority," and one that Shipman and the trustees have used "vague language" to explain.

Mass arrest of student protesters in Butler Library

After pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the main reading room at Butler Library on May 7, 2025, naming it the "Basel Al-Araj Popular University" for Bassel al-Araj, Shipman summoned the NYPD, and police in riot gear arrested 78 student protesters. It was the fourth mass arrest at Columbia University in 18 months and the largest since April 2024 when the NYPD arrested 109 in its sweep of "Hind's Hall" and the second Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The policing and suppression of the protest has been described as forceful and aggressive, with two individuals brought out in a stretcher, one of them wearing a kuffiyeh draped over their face. The university Emergency Medical Service was denied entry by Public Safety to treat injured protestors. Shipman praised the NYPD and Public Safety for what she called their "professionalism" and made scapegoats of the "small group of students" for choosing to make the institution "a target" for state repression.

Boos and jeers at 2025 commencement

On May 20, 2025, during her speech at the Columbia College class day ceremony, Shipman was greeted with jeers and boos, as well as chants of "free Mahmoud" in reference to Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate held in detention since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents abducted him from his Columbia residence on March 8. At the university's main commencement ceremony the following day, there were also boos, jeers, and chants of "free Palestine" from the crowd of graduates during her speech, in which she acknowledged that "many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate Mahmoud Khalil."

Personal life

She was married to former CNN Moscow bureau chief Steve Hurst from 1991 to 1996. She was then married to former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, with whom she has a son and daughter. As of 2025, they were recently divorced.

References

External links

ABCNews biography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shipman, Claire
American television reporters and correspondents
Living people
American women television journalists
Peabody Award winners
People from Worthington, Ohio
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni
20th-century American women journalists
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American women journalists
21st-century American journalists
1962 births
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Journalists from Ohio
Journalists from Washington, D.C.
21st-century American women academics
Presidents of Columbia University
Women heads of universities and colleges
Emmy Award winners
Writers from Columbus, Ohio
21st-century American academics