Condoleezza Rice (born November 14, 1954) became Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, on January 22, 2001, under President George W. Bush. She is the second African American and first woman to hold the office.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995 and the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003.

At Stanford University, Rice is a tenured Professor of Political Science, Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. From 1993-1999 she served as the Stanford Provost.

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the George H. W. Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.

Rice was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation (which named an oil tanker Condoleezza Rice after her, later quietly renamed Altair Voyager), the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. She was a Founding Board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.

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