Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State, will be the 21st William W. Siebens American Heritage Lecture speaker at Buena Vista University (BVU). The American Heritage Lecture Series (AHLS) will take place on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013.
BVU students will be given the opportunity to apply for a seat on a question-and-answer panel with Rice through a competitive process. That process will happen yet this spring, and those selected will work with a faculty moderator and faculty coaches to research Rice. Upon returning to campus for the fall semester, the panelists, moderator and coaches will develop a list of questions for an afternoon event.
According to the news release from BVU, President Fred Moore says that the experience will be an excellent opportunity for students to inquire about the state of the nation and how the world is impacting the United States.
“This is a remarkable opportunity for our students to hear from a former Cabinet member whose career had so much influence on U.S. foreign policy,” Moore said. “We look forward to hearing her valuable insight on the complex world events that are having an impact on our nation today and how they are likely to affect our future.”
The afternoon panel session will be followed by a formal evening lecture delivered to invited regional leaders in the fields of business, law, politics, education and religion.
Rice was the nation’s 66th Secretary of State, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the position. She also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001-2005, the first woman to hold that position.
As Secretary of State, she supported the expansion of democratic governments, helped successfully negotiate several agreements in the Middle East, and worked actively to improve human rights issues in Iran.
Currently, Rice is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Graduate School of Business, the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University. She is also a founding partner of RiceHadleyGates, LLC and a CBS News Contributor. As a member of the Stanford faculty since 1981, she was awarded two of the university’s highest teaching honors.
She has authored and co-authored numerous books, including two bestsellers, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (2011) and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (2010).
Rice will be the third former Secretary of State to serve as a BVU American Heritage speaker. Madeleine Albright, who served from 1997-2001, was the lecturer in 2001, and General Colin Powell, who preceded Rice in the position, was lecturer in 2000, prior to being appointed to the office.
Since 1994, the AHLS series has given students the opportunity to pose questions to the world renowned speakers and leaders, including President George H.W. Bush; Presidents F.W. de Klerk and Vicente Fox; Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Benazir Bhutto, and Tony Blair; Jehan Sadat, widow of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat; and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
The William W. Siebens American Heritage Lecture Series was endowed by the late Dr. Harold Walter Siebens, an Iowa-born entrepreneur and philanthropist, and named in honor of his son.
This series was established in 1989 to provide the BVU campus community, Iowa and the Midwest with access to prominent world figures discussing current issues underlying American freedoms.
Photo courtesy of UMC
