Posted by Mary Wimberley on 2000-03-22

Foreign affairs specialist Condoleezza Rice will speak at Samford University Monday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m. in Wright Center Concert Hall. The public is invited free of charge.

Dr. Rice, currently on a leave of absence as Hoover Senior Fellow and professor of Political Science at Stanford University in California, serves as the primary foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.

The Birmingham native and former foreign affairs advisor to President George Bush will speak at Samford as this year's Percy C. Ratliff lecturer. Her topic will be "Leadership in a Changing World."

She completed a six-year tenure as Stanford's provost in June, 1999. As the institution's chief budget and academic officer, she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and an academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. When Rice, now 45, was appointed Stanford provost at age 38, she was the youngest person, first African-American and first woman ever to occupy the post.

Dr. Rice's teaching and research interests include the politics of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, the comparative study of military institutions, and international security policy.

From 1989 through March, 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the George Bush presidential administration as director, and then senior director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and as special assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Dr. Rice lived her early years in Birmingham, where her father, John Rice, was a Presbyterian pastor and later dean of students at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science with honors from the University of Denver in 1974, a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and a Ph.D. degree from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She has been awarded honorary doctorates by Morehouse College, the University of Alabama and the University of Notre Dame.

Samford's Ratliff series honors a distinguished Samford trustee and early Birmingham business leader, the late Percy C. Ratliff. Earlier Ratliff lecturers include former British prime minister John Major in 1997 and economic expert Louis Rukeyser in 1996.

For information, call (205) 726-2823 or E-mail samnews@samford.edu.

 

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.