Joy Cole Corning Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series

2004 - Sally Ride

Sally Ride inspired a nation with her rise through the NASA program, her stellar work in mission control and two flights on the shuttle Challenger.

Using breathtaking images to illustrate the benefits of space exploration and her deeply personal vision of the mysteries of the universe, Dr. Ride helps us prepare for the challenges that lie ahead in our own personal and professional lives.

Dr. Ride’s second flight aboard Challenger (STS-41G, the thirteenth shuttle mission) took place in 1984 and was also led by Captain Crippen. During its eight-day mission the crew deployed the Earth Radiation Budget satellite, conducted scientific observations of Earth and demonstrated the potential for satellite refueling.

Training for her third flight was interrupted in January 1986 by the Challenger accident. Dr. Ride served on the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, after which she became assistant to the NASA administrator for long-range planning at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. She created NASA’s Office of Exploration and produced a report titled Leadership and America’s Future in Space.

Author of five books, Dr. Ride is currently a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. She is co-founder and CEO of Imaginary Lines, Inc., a company dedicated to encouraging young girls of middle school age to pursue math and science. A former member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, she has also received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, and has twice been awarded the National Spaceflight Medal.

2003 - Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Korbel Albright served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States.  She was the first woman Secretary and is the highest-ranking woman in U.S. history. 

Dr. Albright is the founder of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm.  She is the first Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and is the first distinguished scholar of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School.  She is also the chairman of The National Democratic Institute.  Dr. Albright expects to complete her autobiography for publication in 2003.

As Secretary, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade and business, labor, and environmental standards abroad.

Accomplishments during former Secretary Albright’s tenure included the expansion and modernization of NATO and NATO’s successful campaign to reverse ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; the promotion of peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East; the reduction of nuclear dangers from Russia and North Korea; the expansion of democracy in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America; the expansion of our multifaceted relationship with China including trade as well as human rights; and the growth of trade in the Americas, in Africa through the African Growth Opportunity Act, and through the conclusion of hundreds of other agreements that facilitated American business overseas.  In June 2000,she and representatives from every region of the world convened the first ever conference of democracies.

Dr. Albright also prepared America’s foreign affairs institutions for 21st Century challenges.  Under her leadership four Cold War bureaucracies merged into a single integrated operation.  She reversed a decade-long drop in funding for America’s embassies and operations overseas, persuading Congress to increase funding by 17%.

From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as a member of the President’s Cabinet and National Security Council.  In 1995, she led the U.S. delegation to the U.N.’s Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing China.

Dr. Albright was the director of Women in Foreign Service Programs and a research professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University during the decade prior to her return to public service.  From 1989-1992, she was president of the Center for National Policy, a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington D.C.  As a professor, Dr. Albright wrote extensively on change in communist systems particularly on the role of the media. 

From 1978-81, Dr. Albright was a member of President Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff.  From 1976-78, she served as chief legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie. 

Dr. Albright received her B.A. with Honors, from Wellesley College, Masters and Doctorate from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government, as well as a Certificate from the Russian Institute.

Dr. Albright was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and immigrated to America with her family after Communists took control of that country in 1948.  She is the mother of three daughters and has five grandchildren.

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