Civic Learning Week National Forum

Rice served as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999, during which time she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. As Professor of Political Science, she has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the university’s highest teaching honors.

From February 1989 through March 1991, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She served as Director, then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs, as well as Special Assistant to the President for National Security. In 1986, while an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice also served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

She has authored and co-authored numerous books, most recently To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth (2019), co-authored with Philip Zelikow. Among her other volumes are three bestsellers, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (2017); No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (2011); and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (2010). She also wrote Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (2018) with Amy B. Zegart; Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995) with Philip Zelikow; edited The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin; and penned The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army; 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance (1984).

In 1991, Rice co-founded the Center for a New Generation (CNG), an innovative, after-school academic enrichment program for students in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California. In 1996, CNG merged with the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, an affiliate club of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BCGA). CNG has since expanded to local BGCA chapters in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Dallas. Rice remains an active proponent of an extended learning day through after-school programs.

Since 2009, Rice has served as a founding partner at Rice, Hadley, Gates, & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. The firm works with senior executives of major companies to implement strategic plans and expand in emerging markets. Other partners include former National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, and former diplomat, author, and advisor on emerging markets, Anja Manuel.

In 2022, Rice became a part-owner of the Denver Broncos as a part of the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group. In 2013, Rice was appointed to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, formerly the Bowl Championship Series. She served on the committee until 2017.

Rice currently serves on the boards of C3.ai, an AI software company; and Makena Capital Management, a private endowment firm. In addition, she is Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and a trustee of the Aspen Institute. Previously, Rice served on various boards, including Dropbox; the George W. Bush Institute; the Commonwealth Club; KiOR, Inc.; the Chevron Corporation; the Charles Schwab Corporation; the Transamerica Corporation; the Hewlett-Packard Company; the University of Notre Dame; the Foundation of Excellence in Education; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and the San Francisco Symphony.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver; her master’s in the same subject from the University of Notre Dame; and her Ph.D., likewise in political science, from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Rice is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded over fifteen honorary doctorates.

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Sarah co-chairs the board of the New Pluralists Collaborative—a national initiative bringing together diverse philanthropies, researchers, educators, community leaders, and justice advocates to promote a culture of peaceful pluralism. She also serves on the board of the Trust for Civic Infrastructure, a pooled fund supporting innovative civic spaces that foster collaboration in communities across America. She has been featured in USA Today and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, among other publications.

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Previously, Louise served as Managing Director of Digital Learning at WGBH where she helped launch PBS Learning Media, a platform reaching more than 1.5 million educators. Before WGBH, Louise had a successful career in educational publishing and instructional technology for more than 20 years. In the early 1990s, Louise served as a co-founder of CASES, a New York alternative-to-incarceration program where education helps reshape lives.

Louise is the winner of the 2017 People’s Voice award from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, and was also recognized as a 2019 Donaldson Fellow by the Yale School of Management. She began her career as an attorney in Montreal, Canada, and holds a law degree from McGill University, as well as an MBA from Yale University.

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For 30 years, Kamensky worked as a professor and higher education leader. Before joining Monticello, she served as Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. In her years as Director of the Schlesinger Library, Kamensky successfully worked to raise the profile of the library to the most preeminent of its kind in the world by partnering with an international network of diverse scholars and thought leaders.
Kamensky is the author or editor of numerous books. She also serves as a Trustee of the Museum of the American Revolution, a member of the National Advisory Council of More Perfect, and as one of the principal investigators on the NEH/Department of Education-funded initiative, Educating for American Democracy, among many other public history roles.

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Before being appointed SUNY Chancellor, King served as president of The Education Trust, a national civil rights nonprofit. Prior to this, King served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education. Upon tapping him to lead the U.S. Department of Education, President Obama called King “an exceptionally talented educator,” citing his commitment to “preparing every child for success” and lifelong dedication to public education as a teacher, principal, and leader of schools and school systems.

His service in Washington, D.C., followed King’s tenure as New York’s first African American and first Puerto Rican Education Commissioner, a role in which he oversaw all elementary and secondary schools, as well as public, independent, and proprietary colleges and universities, professional licensure, libraries, museums, and numerous other educational institutions.

You can follow Chancellor King on Twitter at @JohnBKing.

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Klutsey is passionate about driving meaningful dialogue and advancing ideas and practices that sustain a free and open society. He holds an M.A. in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University and a B.A. in Government and Philosophy from Lawrence University.

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During his more than four decades in uniform, he commanded Marines at all levels, from a 40-man infantry platoon to a 42,000-man Marine Expeditionary Force. He led an infantry battalion in the liberation of Kuwait; a naval task force in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001; 1st Marine Division in the initial attack and the following stability operations in Iraq in 2003 and 2004; and subsequently led all U.S. Marine Forces in the Middle East as Commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Forces Central Command.

During his non-combat assignments he served on recruiting duty; as the Battalion Officer at the Naval Academy Preparatory School; Executive Secretary to the Secretary of Defense; Director of Marine Corps Manpower Plans & Policy; Senior Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense; and Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

In joint assignments he commanded U.S. Joint Forces Command; NATO’s Supreme Allied Command for Transformation; and U.S. Central Command. At U.S. Central Command he directed military operations of more than 250,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, Marines, and allied forces in combat across the Middle East.

Retiring in 2013, he was a Davies Family Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Subsequently he served as the 26th Secretary of Defense from January 2017 through December 2018. Currently General Mattis continues his work at the Hoover Institution.

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She became known as “America’s Government Teacher” during the 2020 election for her efforts to combat political misinformation that went viral. Her knack for breaking down complex topics with clarity, humor, and a steadfast commitment to facts has attracted a community of 1.5 million followers—affectionately called the “Governerds.”

McMahon’s newsletter, The Preamble, is one of the largest publications on Substack, providing historical context and nonpartisan insights to help readers navigate today’s political landscape. Her debut book, The Small and the Mighty, has been celebrated as one of the year’s top reads by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Goodreads, highlighting the unsung heroes who shaped America.

Beyond education, McMahon has led philanthropic initiatives that have raised more than $11 million to address critical needs, from medical debt relief to disaster recovery. She has inspired audiences with a message of hope: history shows us that even small actions can create powerful change.

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Ober’s scholarship focuses on historical institutionalism and political theory, especially democratic theory and the contemporary relevance of the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world. He is the author of several books and has published about 100 articles and chapters, including recent articles in American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Polis, Public Choice, Critical Review, and Transactions of the American Philological Association. Work in progress focuses on the relevance of Aristotelian ethics for the development and regulation of artificial intelligence.

Ober joined the Stanford faculty in 2006, after previously teaching at Princeton and Montana State universities. He has served as chairman of Princeton’s Classics Department and of Stanford’s Political Science Department. Ober holds a B.A. in history from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

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A native of Ireland, she studied history in Trinity College Dublin before gaining her PhD at Harvard University, where she spent 20 years on the faculty of the Department of Government, teaching courses on international security and foreign policy. She currently sits on numerous advisory boards, while serving as a trustee of, among others, the Booker Prize Foundation. Richardson is also a member of the selection committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. In 2023, the Irish government asked Richardson to serve as the independent chair of its Consultative Forum on International Security Policy.

A political scientist by training, Richardson is recognized internationally as an expert on terrorism and counterterrorism. She has written several books and numerous articles on international terrorism, British foreign and defense policy, security institutions, and international relations; lectured to public, professional, media, and education groups; and served on editorial boards for several journals and presses.

Richardson’s many awards have recognized the excellence of her teaching and scholarship, including the Centennial Medal bestowed on her in 2013 by Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for “having the vision to assess emerging threats, for transformative leadership, and for moving seamlessly between the roles of scholar and teacher.”

In June 2022, Richardson was appointed a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her services to higher education.

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The Daniels Fund is a $1.7 billion philanthropic organization, the second largest foundation in the Rocky Mountain region. The Fund provides college scholarships to the next generation of America’s leaders and grants to highly effective nonprofits, including support for entrepreneurial endeavors such as the National Civics Bee and Youth Sports Giving Day.

Skandera has held various state and federal leadership positions in education, including secretary of education in New Mexico, deputy commissioner for Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and deputy chief of staff and senior policy advisor for the U. S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush.

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