Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story (17 page)

In 1986, Condi joined the Board of Directors of the Stanford Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition, an organization that helped minorities with health, housing, education, business start-up, and other issues. One of the primary functions of the Coalition was helping run the Peninsula Academies, which provided vocational and academic training to minority students at high risk of dropping out of high school. The academies were founded in 1981 with the goals of improving students’ grades, developing positive attitudes about education, learning about work and responsibility, improving attendance, and preparing for work and/or college. Back in Birmingham, John Rice had done exactly the same in his youth fellowship program at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Condi served on the board for three years.

In 1988, she was elected to the leadership of another education-oriented organization, KQED, San Francisco’s public broadcasting network. The mission of this television and radio network was (and remains) to promote “lifelong learning, the power of ideas and the importance of community service and civic participation.” In her candidate’s letter to KQED, Condi described the assets she felt she could bring to the station’s Board of Directors:

Television and radio play a major, perhaps the major, role in informing Americans about the problems and opportunities that we face as a polity. . . . Directors should be thought of as committed representatives of the viewing public; able from different perspectives to identify those areas in which public broadcasting, through information and exploration of ideas, can make a difference. The Bay Area is an international community with a major stake in America’s international economic and political future and KQED must provide programming commensurate with that stake. As a professor of international politics and Soviet affairs, I am particularly concerned that this challenge be met. I can bring concern and expertise on these important issues to the Board.

Just one month after being elected to the Board, however, Condi accepted the position with the National Security Council in Washington. She submitted her resignation before having the opportunity to attend any Board meetings.

Condi reached a large audience in the Bay Area community when she was asked to give a speech at the Commonwealth Club, the public affairs forum that hosts hundreds of events each year to explore politics, society, culture, and other contemporary issues. The Club began its public speech series in 1911 with Teddy Roosevelt, and those who have followed include celebrity politicians and national figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Erin Brockovich, and Bill Gates. On May 9, 1988, Condi delivered a speech entitled “U.S.-Soviet Relations: The Gorbachev Era” for the Club’s Friday Luncheon Program at the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The speech was heard throughout the country via live radio broadcast.

Two other speaking engagements highlighted thirty-three-year-old Professor Rice’s calendar in that period. In November 1987, she was invited to be a visiting scholar for a few days at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She lectured and led a seminar for students in the university’s Center for Russian and East European Studies, and also gave a public speech about Gorbachev. The following spring, in April 1988, she made a trip to the USSR to give a speech at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Moscow.

Condi’s community activities were motivated by a genuine desire to do public service, a characteristic that did not go unnoticed by her colleagues. “I think of people as being one of two types,” said John Raisian, Director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. “One group looks at the politics of an organization and thinks strategically as they climb the career ladder. Others look for opportunities to make a difference, independent of where that puts them on the ladder. Condi is very much the latter.” He added that she is the sort of person who thrives on taking on many things at once. In addition to her teaching, writing, and research, “she has always had advisory interests and capacities,” he said. “She’s always been a very busy and full-plate-type person.”

Her plate began to fill up during her first year at Stanford when she started serving on several university committees and other administrative organizations. Her committee involvement included the Public Service Center Steering Committee, which she chaired (1987 and 1991-1999); the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, which she also chaired for one year (1982-1985 and 1988-1989); the Executive Committee of the Institute for International Studies (1988-1989 and 1991-1993); and the Graduate Admissions Committee, which she chaired for one year (1991-1992). She was also the Director of Graduate Studies and a member of the Faculty Senate in 1988 and 1989. The Senate handles the internal administration of the university, from setting policy to drafting new rules and statutes regarding degree programs. The Senate’s proposals are forwarded to the Board of Trustees for approval.

In 1985, Condi was awarded a National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, which allowed her to take a break from her classroom work and devote an entire year to research. Founded by Herbert Hoover in 1919, the Institution was one of the first think tanks in the United States and has amassed one of the world’s largest archives and libraries on twentieth century politics, economics, and social issues. In its mission statement, Hoover defines itself as a research organization committed to “generating ideas that define a free society. . . . [and] contributing to the pursuits of securing and safeguarding peace, improving the human condition and limiting government intrusion into the lives of individuals.”

Among the research opportunities for scholars at Hoover is the National Fellows Program, which supports junior scholars who are completing research projects. That year, Condi was among fourteen people selected from throughout the country for the fellowship. It was the first of three Hoover fellowships she would receive during her years at Stanford. As a National Fellow from September 1985 to the August 1986, she completed
The Gorbachev Era
with Alexander Dallin, one of her three published books. Dallin was an emeritus professor of political science and history at Stanford when he died in July 2000, and his colleagues at the university’s Center for Russian and East European Studies described him as “a distinguished scholar and a kind and wise human being.” Working on a book with Dallin was an honor in itself, as he was one of the country’s foremost experts on the Soviet Union and one of the first generation of graduates from Columbia University’s Russian Institute.

Condi atop her uncle’s car, age five, in 1959.
Courtesy of Condoleezza Rice

A school picture in Birmingham, age seven.
Courtesy of Condoleezza Rice

The Rice home in Birmingham, just a few blocks from Westminster Presbyterian Church where Condi’s father was the pastor. The home was built by the church to serve as the parish house shortly after Condi was born.
Photo by Antonia Felix

Inside Westminster Presbyterian Church. During Sunday services, Condi played the piano (front left) while her mother played the organ (front right) and her father preached from the center pulpit.
Photo by Antonia Felix
Westminster Presbyterian Church on South Sixth Avenue (Titusville) in Birmingham.
Photo by Antonia Felix

A portrait of Condi’s grandfather, John Wesley Rice, whom she discussed in her speech at the Republican National Convention in 2000. Reverend Rice left sharecropping to attend college and become a Presbyterian minister, and he founded Westminster Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. His son, Condi’s father, took over as minister of the church in 1951.
Courtesy of Westminster Presbyterian Church