Articles Celebrations Obituaries

Joshua Packwood told of his experiences during a stop at Milligan College’s Seeger Chapel on Tuesday.
(Rex Barber / Johnson City Press)

Facing new situations critical to learning, Morehouse grad says

By Rex Barber
Press Staff Writer
rbarber@johnsoncitypress.com

 Printer-friendly version

 Email Article

MILLIGAN COLLEGE — Forcing yourself to face different situations is the key to understanding and learning, according to one white alumnus of a historically black university.

That alum is Joshua Packwood and the university is Morehouse College in Atlanta, which has conferred bachelor’s degrees on more African-American men than any other college or university in the United States.

Packwood, who graduated in 2008 as the first white valedictorian from Morehouse, spoke to Milligan College students Tuesday.

“I always wanted to go to the Ivy Leagues,” Packwood said Tuesday before his speech, adding that he in fact had a scholarship to Columbia University.

However, most of Packwood’s growth, maturation and the lessons he learned in life came from him going into environments where he was not necessarily comfortable, he said.

“So I decided that Morehouse was going to be a place where I was going to be, you know, forced to take on different circumstances than I would have at Columbia, being the only white student in my graduating class and (one of) less than five on campus out of a population of about 3,000 ... ”

The Morehouse experience gave him a different perspective on life, Packwood said. He learned that it takes a lot of effort to get to know people.

“I learned that oftentimes my first initial judgement on someone was completely wrong and their first judgements of me were completely wrong,” he said.

Packwood is originally from Kansas City, Mo. He was raised in a primarily African-American neighborhood and high school, and grew up with African-American stepsiblings.

Before graduating from Morehouse with a 4.0 grade-point average, he accepted a position as a proprietary investor for banking firm Goldman Sachs.

While he was at Morehouse a student once told Packwood that he did not like it that he was attending the school because it was established for the education of black males. By attending Morehouse, Packwood was in effect taking away a seat that should have gone to a black man, the student told him. Packwood initially wanted to defend himself. But the men talked instead getting defensive with each other.

The two are now friends. Packwood thinks that is because both men took the time to talk and to get to know one another. He said people should learn about each other instead of passing judgement in order to live a fuller, richer life.

But that experience was not the norm at Morehouse, Packwood said. Most of his fellow students were supportive and very positive, he said.

There were other criticisms, though, mainly from sources outside Morehouse when Packwood was named valedictorian, he said. However, at Morehouse the basic formula to establish the valedictorian is simple and objective, Packwood said; the person with the highest grade-point average is the valedictorian. That person was Packwood.

“It definitely brought attention to myself and attention to my school,” Packwood said of him being the valedictorian. “And that in and of itself was a very instrumental experience, because there were definitely people on, you know, both sides of the fence in regards to whether it was appropriate or not ... that I became the valedictorian.”

Packwood said he has a duty to speak publicly about his life and his experience at Morehouse as often as possible. That is why he was at Milligan Tuesday.

“I have actively tried to make decisions in my life that put me in kind of different experiences and I think it’s very important that those experiences be shared ... ,” Packwood said.

He said Morehouse provided him with a unique chance by giving him a scholarship to attend the school in a unique environment — as a white man in a historically black college.

“And that I was expected to take those experiences and share them going forward and to hopefully change people’s perspectives, whatever they may be,” he said.