Introducing himself during the annual Student Leadership training program at Seattle Central College, Dr. Johnny C. Woods Jr. briefly mentions the joy he finds in visiting educational institutes while traveling across different states in the country. That leads The Seattle Collegian to ask for more details about his travels and the purposes of this ritual.
Currently, Dr. Johnny C. Woods Jr. is the Executive Director of Campus Operations at Seattle Central, and is responsible for the Budget and Finance Office. He provides oversight for the facilities department, which is responsible for infrastructure, capital projects, building maintenance, repairs, and so forth. However, he has come across many hardships in his long education journey that began in his home country of Liberia.
The early part of the journey
“I had a little bit of a rough start,” Dr. Woods recalls his past. “I graduated from high school as a refugee.” During his early years, his home country of Liberia experienced civil conflict and a civil war, leading him to become a refugee. During this unstable period, he had to complete some stages of his education both outside and inside of the country. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Sociology in Liberia, and then a master’s degree in Education in Uganda.
In like manner, Dr. Woods starts his professional journey in the education sector from the Ministry of Education in Liberia. After working there for a couple of years, he transitioned to higher education, spending some time at a university in Liberia before deciding to pursue his doctorate at Virginia Tech in the United States. Dr. Woods notes “I was already 13 years in working in higher education [when] I was trying to pursue a degree in higher education.” Hence, he engaged in his doctoral program with a good sense of what the program seeked to achieve.
Towards Seattle Central College
Despite receiving numerous offers from various institutions, including universities, Dr. Woods chose to accept the position at Seattle Central College. “Nothing is being fabricated yet. I was like four months away from becoming an assistant professor at a research institution, and I left that to come here,” states Dr. Woods.
As a first-generation college student in the past, he thinks being involved in a community college is very important for the type of work he wants to do. He claims that he leverages his own experience with that passion and motivation to ensure that he is contributing to the development of the next generation, helping students find their purpose in life.
It has come a long way since Dr. Woods started his career in higher education, which now spans over 20 remarkable years. “So that’s my discipline, that’s my field,” he remarks. “And as a result of being in that field, I get so much satisfaction from being in a college and university environment.”
Traveling and the ritual
Dr. Woods loves traveling as a personal endeavor. The most interesting part is, as part of those travels, he always tries to visit higher education institutes such as community colleges, campuses, and universities. “I am on a personal adventure to visit all 50 states and all territories of the United States,” he notes. “So, to date, just about four or five weeks ago, I am at number 40 out of the 50 states. I’ve probably seen over 60 institutions by now.”
According to his view, visiting different educational institutes is like a ritual during his travels. “Part of that is my ritual, I feel pleased, I feel accomplished on my travels if I can visit an educational institution or higher education institution,” he says.
Nevertheless, he has an incredible reason to follow that ritual wherever he travels. “What good ideas exist out there that I can probably borrow and replicate on my campus,” he explains the reasons behind it. He tries to Find out how people do things differently than we do at Seattle Central College, and then tries to implement those better ideas at Central as well.
During his recent visit to Austin, Texas, he visited Austin Community College, and it led him to borrow an idea about digitized navigating systems, big digital screens, digital tablet systems, and more. In his view, modernizing the college infrastructure is very important to improve student life. Now, he is on his way to realizing the idea he witnessed during his visit.
Thinking of his own trajectory and difficulties, he sees the value of colleges and how those effects change people’s lives. “I have seen the value of education, I experienced it. It’s a means of transformation, it’s a means of social and economic mobility. As a first-generation college student, I’ve seen that they manifested in my life,” concludes Dr. Woods.
Author
Indunil Usgoda Arachchi is from Sri Lanka and has worked for several years as a newspaper journalist and freelance photojournalist for local and international media. After becoming a student at Seattle Central College, she joined The Seattle Collegian.
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