Photo by: David Stewart

Former Secretary of State and DU alumna Condoleezza Rice toured DU yesterday, making stops in two International Studies classes to lecture on upcoming threats to the international system and then to conduct a question-and-answer session at the Cable Center at 6 p.m.

During the class visits, Rice said there were three major impacts that affected the international system, including 9/11, the global financial crisis and hostility in the Middle East. These events, she said, have greatly impacted American foreign policy by emphasizing the need for increased global security.

An audience of nearly 700 people attended the question-and-answer event at the Cable Center, which was not open to the public to hear Rice recount her political experience and career.

Rice said her position as Secretary of State was “the best job in government.”

Rice, an American political scientist and diplomat, responded to questions, addressing education reform, Middle Eastern relations and her view of China as a rising power.

She also joked about the alleged crush Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s official ruler, had on her.

Christopher Hill, the Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, also read from a list of questions audience members had shared upon arriving at the event earlier in the evening.

When asked if she would accept the Republican Vice Presidential nomination for the upcoming 2012 presidential election, she declined.

“I love policy, but not politics,” said Rice.

Since leaving Washington nearly three and a half years ago, Rice has resumed her position as a political science professor at Stanford University.

“The most important difference is that when I get up in the morning and make my coffee and read the newspaper, I think, ‘well, isn’t that interesting,” said Rice. “I’m no longer responsible for what’s in it.”