The scuttlebutt circling the University of Alabama’s fledgling search for a new president has focused recently on one well-known but perhaps surprising name: Condoleezza Rice.
While Rice has not been popular on college campuses in recent years – her appearances have been met with vitriolic protests by some students and faculty – that has apparently not fazed some in Alabama from seeking to call her home.
In private and some public conversations, several University of Alabama students, and even some professors, say the former secretary of state and Alabama native would be the perfect person to replace current university president Dr. Judy Bonner, who is stepping down this September.
Rice has been sought after for other high-profile positions recently. In September there was talk of her taking over as NFL commission. In November, she quickly squashed rumors she might seek a stab at the White House.
This month, she was eyed as a possible candidate to take a run at a California Senate seat, as Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer does not plan to seek re-election. She said through a staffer she is not interested, that “She’s happy here at Stanford!”
Rice is currently a professor of political economy in 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, according to her faculty profile.
Now some at the University of Alabama want her to consider coming home to the state she was born and raised in to lead its flagship university.
One of the most forceful calls has come from junior Chisolm Allenlundy, who wrote an open letter to Rice earlier this month in the school’s student-run newspaper, The Crimson White.
“Dr. Rice, you are that leader,” Allenlundy wrote. “You’ve demonstrated your ability to carry those who follow you to new heights. As Secretary of State, you helped hold the world together as it was coming apart at the seams. As Stanford’s Provost, you saved the school from a budget deficit that threatened its place atop the list of America’s best colleges and universities. You have shown us all that you excel when steering the masses through an intimidating unknown.”
Allenlundy told The College Fix in an interview that the main reason he believes Rice is a great candidate to lead UA as president is her record as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999, during which she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. During that time she helped turn a deep deficit into a solid surplus in just a few years, Allenlundy said.
“They brought her in with the main intention of balancing the budget,” Allenlundy said. “She made that her main goal, her seminal goal, and she managed to turn it around.”
While UA is not experiencing the same problem right now, Allenlundy said, the school is expanding to the point where new infrastructure and services are required to match the “huge” growth in population.
“It is going to take somebody who is really skilled in using money wisely and skilled in managing a budget to be able to do that,” Allenlundy said. “It definitely isn’t a job for everyone.”
“I think she has a clear history and experience doing the kind of things we need her to do.”
As far as the campus support for Rice goes, Allenlundy describes it as “favorable among a pretty wide swath of students.”
“Even the more liberal students that I have in my circle very much see her as a very good potential candidate, someone who would definitely lead us in the right direction,” Allenlundy said. “I don’t think her political preferences really seem to sway people’s opinions too much at least, as far as I have been able to tell.”
Allenlundy added that he has even heard a few professors mention that hiring Rice would be “an intriguing thing to pursue,” although he is not sure how much attention it has gotten at the upper administrative and board of trustees levels.
A presidential search committee has formed but has yet to meet.
Steve Miller, president of the UA faculty senate and a member of the search committee, told The College Fix in an email that there has been some talk around campus about Rice as a contender. He said “a couple of people” have told him that they think she would be “a great president.”
While Allenlundy said he believes there is bound to be “some degree of dissent” against Rice because of her political career, he said that “it doesn’t seem to be significant at all.”
“Every president that we have had – if we have ever known anything about their political preferences – they have been rather conservative leaning, so it isn’t exactly a shift from the norm,” Allenlundy said.
Last May, incessant gripes by liberal students and professors against Rice as a commencement speaker at Rutgers University – including a faculty resolution labeling her a war criminal, calls for administrators to disinvite her, and a sit-in protest – prompted Rice to withdraw from accepting the honor.
And last April, a self-proclaimed “radical” student activist group at the University of Minnesota called on campus police to arrest and question the former Secretary of State when she visited the campus. That was accompanied by a faculty-led protest of her visit there.
College Fix reporter Michael Cipriano is a student at American University.
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