Condoleeza Rice Comes to Georgia Southern Campus

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited and spoke at my University last week. The speech was given at the Hanner Fieldhouse which is where the Georgia Southern Basketball team plays and is also where the Winter Graduation ceremony is held.
The make-up of the audience was a very wide range. Of course there were lots of students and professors. The front of the auditorium was comprised of students that held leadership positions on campus such as presidents of various societies and clubs. I also saw a good number of children there with their parents as well as elderly people. I believe, since Condoleeza Rice is such a successful black woman in the world, people did not want to miss the oppurtunity for her to speak. I think this is why the demographics of the audience were so vast.
Dr. Rice spoke on her past and about leadership. I learned that Dr. Rice came from humble begginings and that her original dream was to become a concert pianist. However, after taking an international political science class she fell in love and found her true passion. I learned that she had a good relationship with President Bush but, she did not always agree with the decisions he made. She spoke about her experience with 9/11 and the profound effect it had on her life. Dr. Rice informed us that if Hilary Clinton remains Secretary of State it will have been 20 years since a white male has sat as the Secretary of State. I learned that Dr. Rice is open to questions from college students and seems to genuinely be interested in evoking a sense of strength and leadership in todays youth.
I would definately go to see Condoleeza Rice speak again. She was the best public speaker I have ever seen. She was eloquent and charismatic and kept me captivated the entire time. I do wish, however, that the Q&A portion of the program was not as long and her speech was a bit longer. I thought some of the questions were trivial and obvious and if the school wanted to spend so much time with this they could have gathered some more hard-hitting questions. That being said, I would not miss the oppurtunity to hear Dr. Rice speak.
I personally believe that in comparison to other speakers, Dr. Rice blew everyone I have ever seen out of the water. However, there was a definite structure to her speech that is present in most speeches. For example she broke the ice with the audience by making a joke about Georgia Southern’s Women’s basketball team. She also had an obvious body and conclusion.
I think you can absolutely think about politics being a culture in and of itself. I have a really hard time trusting our government because most politicians have a certain sleeziness to them that I simply cannot look past. Dr. Rice and President Obama truly lack this trait in my opinion. They both have an ability to shoot straight with the american people without envoking fear in the general public. I think the face of politics is changing and I believe this has a huge deal to do with Condoleeza Rice and Barack Obama.
I thought the event overrall was a huge success. Honestly just the simple fact that we were able to have such a well-renowed woman come to our school is a success in itself. I think this event brought some credibility and respect to our campus and would love to see more people like Dr.Rice visit Georgia Southern.