She has rarely given in to anyone, be it her twin daughters or an army of Haitian or Iraqi soldiers.
But she decided to give in to the College's pleas that she speak at its 231st graduation ceremonies today.
Madeleine Albright, the country's first female Secretary of State, is scheduled as the keynote speaker as the Class of 2001 departs Hanover.
The loyal Democrat who told the Haitian military junta in 1994 "you can depart voluntarily and soon, or you can depart voluntarily and soon," is noted by foreign relations experts as one of the most aggressive Secretaries of State the country has ever seen.
"Words are cheap; actions are the coin of the realm," she noted about Iraq, adding that the true lesson to be learned from World War II was to fight force with force.
The 1959 Wellesley College graduate was confirmed to her position in the Clinton administration in 1997 by a unanimous Senate.
Albright presided over a historic restructuring of U.S. foreign affairs institutions to respond to the political threats of the new millenium.
Prior to her confirmation, Albright served as president of the Center for National Policy, as a staff member on the National Security Council, as well as a White House staff member from 1978-1981, when she was responsible for foreign policy legislation.
As experienced as she is in United States government, Albright was not born in America.
A native of Czechoslovakia, she fled the country when she was 11 with her father. Albright's father escaped to London in order to escape persecution as a Jew.
He converted to Catholicism, raising his daughter as a Catholic.
Albright discovered she was Jewish only when The Washington Post ran an article revealing her religious background. Further exploration divulged the fact that more than a dozen of Albright's relatives had been murdered during the Holocaust.
Though initially reticent in discussing the surprise, Albright's embrace of cultural and religious freedom likely stemmed from that experience, close friends say.
She was criticized during the crisis in Kosovo for underestimating Slobodan Milosevic's ability to withstand NATO forces.
The dictator was only brought down from power this April, though United States and NATO forces, with Albright's support, had endeavored to topple him two years earlier.
Albright received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in public law and government in 1968, after giving birth to three daughters, two of whom are twins.
She also studied at Johns Hopkins University.
Besides her fluency in English, Albright can claim fluency and proficiency in French, Czech, Polish and Russian.
