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Condoleezza Rice Returns To Stanford Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns to work at Stanford University's Hoover Institution this week. She is going back to same office she left and to some deep roots in the Bay Area academic community.

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Condoleezza Rice Returns To Stanford

Heard on All Things Considered

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Scott Shafer

Condoleezza Rice Returns To Stanford

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After a 10-year absence, Condoleezza Rice is back at Stanford University.

The former secretary of State is leaving the Iraq War and other international crises behind to resume her role as scholar at the Hoover Institution think tank.

When Rice left Stanford a decade ago, she was running the place. As the youngest provost in university history, she steered the institution through a fiscal crisis with painful spending cuts.

That episode may seem almost quaint to her now — after two controversial terms in the Bush administration.

Few, if any, of the students on campus now were here when Rice left to work for then-Gov. George W. Bush. That doesn't mean people are indifferent about her return.

Rice, however, says she's ready for a spirited debate — within limits.

Scott Shafer reports for member station KQED.