She hasn't been coy. She's repeatedly denied any aspirations to elected office. She's said she has no interest in becoming president of a university. When her service in the Bush administration is done, U.S. Secretary of State and Stanford professor of political science Condoleezza Rice has repeated, including to a Nashville radio interviewer in November, “I'll be ready to go back to Stanford. And, Steve, I'll watch some Pac-10 football.”
Tenure is a foundational element of academic freedom, allowing scholars to pursue research and present ideas without fear of losing their jobs. The same notion applies to faculty who leave the University for public service.
There have been pointed remarks in the media from emeriti faculty and others who disagree with the policies Rice worked to implement for President George W. Bush. Some have even said the University should not “allow” her to return. Make no mistake: Secretary Rice won't need anybody's permission to go back to being Professor Rice. When a tenured faculty member who is granted leave for high government service wishes to return, “There is no decision for the institution to make,” explains Stanford Provost John Etchemendy, PhD '82.
Any faculty member can request an unpaid leave of absence for one year for a variety of reasons ranging from attending to family needs to starting a company. The maximum term of such a leave is two consecutive years. Etchemendy says there is one exception: high government service. “The policy that we have is one that every other major research university has. Universities contribute hugely to the running of our country.”
Rice, who in 1989 left Stanford for two years to serve on the National Security Council, is one in a long line of Stanford faculty who have been granted extended leaves for high government service and then returned, including former law professor Tom Campbell, who served two terms in the U.S. Congress. (Campbell is now dean of the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley.) William J. Perry, '49, MS '50, the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor with a joint appointment in engineering and at the Freeman Spogli Institute, was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. And President George W. Bush's current chair of the Council of Economic Advisers is Stanford's Edward P. Lazear, the Jack Steele Parker Professor of Human Resources Management and Economics.
Were Secretary Rice to finish in Washington and then take a position in industry or, as she has joked in the past, her “dream job” as commissioner of the National Football League, her leave would expire and Stanford's obligation to her would cease, notes Etchemendy. If she returns and joins the department of political science, she will be expected to shoulder a normal teaching load, which would typically be four courses per year. However, faculty also can choose to spend time in a research institute, such as the Hoover Institution or the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which can agree to pay their salary while they write and re-engage with their research. Such a move relieves the individual of teaching duties. Etchemendy adds that returning faculty also can work out shared or half-time arrangements between an academic department and a research institute.
Etchemendy says he wouldn't be surprised if Rice were to take the research and writing path for her first year back. “I believe jobs of the sort that she's had require some time to decompress, think, rethink, write about the experience. That's valuable for the world, and I hope she does that.”
