Kathryn D Nelson
Leadership Processes
Professor Harrison
April 22, 2013
Abstract
Condoleezza Rice was born in 1954 in the racially segregated south in Birmingham Alabama. Her father was a pastor and her mother a teacher. Because of the segregation, she was homeschooled in order to ensure a better schooling and a chance for college. Her community pulled together and educated the children with nearly every adult in the community acting as teachers. She grew up during Martin Luther King’s drive for equality. He was jailed five minutes from her house and one of her schoolmates was one of the little girls killed in the Birmingham bombings. Although she grew up in turbulent times, political science was not her immediate choice of careers. Rice’s goal was to become a concert pianist and was considered quite accomplished. She changed her major three times until she attended and international politics class taught by Josef Korbel. Condoleezza Rice (Condi) earned her doctorate in Political science. Condi wanted to teach and joined Stanford University in 1981 as a political science professor.
Condi Rice served a year as an International fellow attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as an advisor on Soviet studies. She was appointed by President George H Bush as the director of Soviet and East European affairs. This was during the time of the Soviet Union dissolution and restructuring and Germany’s reconsolidation. This launched her firmly into the Bush inner circle. She played a key role in female integration into the military serving on the committee that would later restructure the guidelines for female role opening up.
Condi Rice integrated fully into the next president’s staff. “Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first black woman (and second woman) to hold the post. She went on to become the first black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State—she became the nation 's 66th Secretary of State
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