Von Washington Jr. (’90) arrived in Gunnison on a basketball scholarship, but it didn’t take him long to realize that his Western experience would be about something bigger than basketball. He found his place in the Communication and Theatre Department, where professors encouraged him to see possibilities in himself that he hadn’t considered and helped prepare him for a career spent bringing people together.
After graduating from Western, Washington spent 22 years in education and eventually became principal of Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan. In 2010, the school won a nationwide competition that brought President Barack Obama to Kalamazoo to deliver its commencement address. Washington later stepped into economic development before being offered what he describes as his dream job, leading the Kalamazoo Promise.
Now in his 14th year as CEO, Washington oversees a scholarship program that covers tuition and fees for eligible graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools. Backed by anonymous donors and promised in perpetuity, the program has invested $250 million in students since it was established in 2005, helping expand access to higher education and transform the community Washington has spent much of his career serving.
For that work, and a career shaped by the belief that no individual is bigger than the mission, Western Colorado University named Washington a recipient of its Distinguished Alumni Award. He spoke with us about the professors and coaches who shaped him, the day a president came to graduation, and the lessons from Western that still guide his work.
What’s your first memory of Western Colorado University?
The big “W” was absolute beauty of campus and the people drew me there, more than basketball. And it was one of the first times that something other than basketball was bigger than basketball. My experience there, I could feel I was going to have a good experience.
What about Western stands out to you most?
I really have to say that it’s so unique because of the people that I met there. It really holds up to what a small liberal arts institution prides itself on, and that’s the ability to have personal touch. To build relationships with those who you are learning from. They can learn from you; you can learn from them. That really stands out.
And I know that colleges across the country put that in their first order of business: We have a personal touch. You’ll get this and that. And Western really holds up to it. I talked about theater and how my instructors looked at me and what could have been a situation of, “Oh, we have a person of color in the theater department.” They were like, “Hey, we got a person of color in the theater department.” Next thing, we were doing some shows that featured people of color, you know, so there were opportunities that we got to grab from each other. It was just great.
Was there a professor, coach, mentor, or experience at Western that had a lasting impact on your career or life?
Paul Edwards in the Theater Department. Paul saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself. He’s the one that said, “Hey, we’ve got this opportunity.” He’s the one that said, “You can do this.” He was fantastic.
Jay Hellman, my basketball coach, also had a great impact on me. I loved playing basketball for him. We had the worst season in school history, I think, but I learned a lot from him.
Do you feel like theater and communication have had a huge impact on your life and your path?
Absolutely, absolutely. I don’t know what other path I could have pursued, and I didn’t know anything about it going into college. I didn’t know much about a communications degree. Communication and theater has had a profound impact on my life. And as a double major, really helped you to adapt to any situation you’re in. As a person of color, I’m in a lot of situations where I am the only one in a room, and communication and the ability to act in a certain way, not a false way, but be able to bring that out, what you do on a stage in front of strangers every night, I believe has been invaluable in impacting my life.
If you could give one piece of advice to today’s Western students, what would it be?
Try a lot of stuff while you’re there.
You don’t know what you’re going to like and not like, and this is a great place to experience it. I was on the basketball team. I did theatre. I played softball. I fished. I learned how to hunt. I learned how to ski. Any number of things, and the list could probably go on.
You’ve achieved some remarkable milestones. Is there a moment in your career that still feels surreal when you think back on it?
In 2010, I received a letter as the principal of Kalamazoo Central High School, and it was called the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge. The White House had sent letters to all high schools in the country saying, “Tell us why your high school is a great place to be.” and if you were selected, then you would go into a group of six who would then make a video demonstrating why their high school was so great.
If you won this competition, the President of the United States would give your commencement address. It would be the first time in history that a sitting president gave a high school graduation speech.
So we were picked in the six. One of those six was out of Denver, Colorado, as a matter of fact. We made the video, and if your video was one of the top three vote-getters on the World Wide Web, then the president himself would choose the school that he was going to speak at and he picked our school! It was that historical moment. President Barack Obama was the president at the time, and he came and gave our high school commencement address.
And that’s a whole book to write about that.
What was President Obama like?
So they lined me up because I was going to meet him ahead of time, and there was a long hallway to where the limousine was going to come in.
You can imagine, for two months I’ve been waiting for this moment and he comes around the corner, all these busy people start coming around the corner, and then President Obama comes. I swear to you, it was like slow motion, the coolest, most powerful man in the world was walking down the hall with a swagger that was remarkable.
He shook my hand. He knew all about me. You know, maybe we’ll have to play basketball, this and that. But he’s one of those people that, when you were talking to him, you feel like you are the most important thing to that person at that time. Knowing he has the world on his shoulders, his ability to make you feel that way was so remarkable.
I was just in awe. And I smiled, like, for two and a half hours. If you go on YouTube, if you look at the video of the graduation stuff, I was just looking at him the whole time. It was amazing.
How did you find your way to the Kalamazoo Promise?
As the principal of the high school, after 22 years in education, I was invited to join the local economic development group in town. Go figure, right?
But I had met the CEO, and he thought I could do a real good job at it. So I thought, maybe I’ll make a change. I did economic development for one year, and at the end of that year, my boss came to me, brought me in the room and he said, “Hey, some really important people would like for you to go and run the Kalamazoo Promise.”
And that was a dream job for me. I’ve been here for 14 years.
Could you tell our readers a little bit about what you do now and why it’s important to you?
I’m the CEO of what’s called the Kalamazoo Promise, which is the most generous opportunity for a college scholarship that we’re aware of. The Kalamazoo Promise pays for the tuition and fees for all students who graduate from the Kalamazoo Public Schools, and the organization has been doing this for the last 20 years, it is just remarkable.
$250 million later, we’re seeing community transformation. We’re seeing an educated community of learners who want to give back. This has been promised in perpetuity, so it’s work that we get to experiment on. We get to see how it’s working and change the human condition.
It is very rewarding each and every day. And the fact that I get to do this and represent those anonymous donors who are providing the resource is just something that I don’t think that I can ever overestimate or exaggerate.
What’s your favorite part of the job?
The ability to go forth and do good. This is amazing.
You know, it took a long time to get things real messed up in the world, and it’s going to take a long time to figure out how to undo and get things on the right direction.
But I represent people who have great wealth that think it can be done, and so rewards are great every day.
It’s remarkable to feel like you can do that.
What does it mean to be the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award?
It’s one of the highest honors I think I’ve had in my life.
I never thought that I was anything special, especially when I was at Western State, just trying to fit in with all the other students. Then, as you build a career and things happen in your life, there’s not always recognition for many of those things. And this honor takes a lot of your body of work into consideration.
Just to be mentioned with anybody else that is considered to be someone that has been impactful, using and leveraging the degree that they received at Western, I believe to be rare. It’s a great honor for me.
Looking back, what was the greatest lesson you learned at Western?
This lesson still holds. Nobody is bigger than the program.
And I learned that you have to get over your fine self sometimes, and that you are very special, but you are only a small part of a greater whole.
You have to make sure that you take accountability in your actions and what you’re doing in that greater whole and make the greater whole better. Don’t detract from it. I thought that I was someone that everybody was thinking about but I had a basketball coach let me know real quick:
“You can be replaced.”
That was a really big lesson for me and one that I’ve carried on, and I have shared with anybody that will listen.
Author Credit: Seth Mensing
