Obama administration official returns to alma mater to discuss personal path to the White House
Deputy Assistant National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to speak at Rice University Feb. 21

Rice University alumnus Benjamin Rhodes, currently deputy assistant to President Barack Obama and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting, will return to campus Feb. 21 to present “From Rice to the White House: An Alumnus’ Journey” at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Rice alumnus Ben Rhodes, right, reviews a speech with President Barack Obama.

His lecture will begin at noon in Baker Hall’s Doré Commons.

After graduating from Rice in 2000, Rhodes went to New York University, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing. He also taught writing during those two years at NYU and John Jay College in New York. He went to Washington, where he worked for former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton as a policy aide and speechwriter. Later, Rhodes went to work for Obama after the then-senator from Illinois announced his run for the presidency, and Rhodes moved to Chicago to work for the campaign full time in July 2007. For the next 16 months, he was part of a three-person speechwriting team (a fourth was added in the general election), working together on many of the bigger speeches and splitting up the other ones. He became the chief national security speechwriter and the deputy director of White House speechwriting after the inauguration. In his current role, Rhodes oversees the president’s national security communications, speechwriting and global engagement.

Rice faculty, staff and students who want to attend must RSVP by e-mail (bipprsvp@rice.edu), by fax (713-348-5993) or on the Web at http://bakerinstitute.org/events/from-rice-to-the-white-houst-an-alumnus-journey. A webcast of the event can also be seen at this address.