Macon Magazine

faith, Friday night football, and family as anchors. Her path was also set by great teachers, at Matilda Hartley Elementary School and onto Southwest, where she was the homecoming queen. Rice names Gloria Washington, Ella Carter, and Mae Brewer as powerful women who pointed the way. All of them pointed to a future without limits, regardless of the circumstances of one's birth or social discrimination. In Brewer's cooking classes, for example, "We would prepare these wonderful foods and then we would dress to actually serve ourselves and each other. We did this with minimal resources. She always said, 'You don't have to be rich to eat richly.' Those [lessons] were the foundation of things," said Rice. "So I would say to a young lady or a young person, you are not limited by the circumstances in which you were born – or even which you grow up in – but you do have to be willing to work hard with unimaginable anticipation of what's possible for you and your future." Education is the equalizer That kind of purpose led Montgomery Rice to Georgia Tech, and later Harvard Medical School, where she trained to become an OB-GYN. Eventually, she settled into being an infertility specialist and a professor at the University of Kansas. She started addressing inequity as the founding director of the Center for Women's Health Research at Meharry Medical College, also an HBCU medical school. This was a unique research opportunity dedicated to addressing the distinct health challenges faced by women, particularly women of color. This propelled her to eventually become Meharry's dean. When asked about challenges throughout her time as a leader, Montgomery Rice was candid: "Early on in my career, because I was a great student, lots of people always had advice for me about what I should do next… So I was letting other people more so direct my future than me directing my future, and it didn't work out well." A new president came to Meharry and eventually asked Montgomery Rice to step down. She was devastated, but not deterred. "I said, okay, how do I turn this into an opportunity? I got an executive coach and really started to think about what I wanted for my career. I reconnected with my family, my husband, my two kids because I had been so busy and had not created any element of balance. I started to really reflect." This thought process led Montgomery Rice to Morehouse School of Medicine, with "a role that aligned with my passion and my purpose," she said. She would have the opportunity to shape another historically Black medical school while returning home to her native Georgia. A couple of years after her arrival, Montgomery Rice was at the helm. LEFT Valerie Montgomery Rice is photographed on the campus of Morehouse School of Medicine in the heart of Atlanta. April/May 2025 | maconmagazine.com 53 " I w o u l d t e l l t h e m t h e s k y i s t h e l i m i t . B e l i e v e i n p o s s i b i l i t i e s . " T hat's what Valerie Montgomery Rice, ten years into her role as president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), says she would tell a young aspiring to leadership today. "And my reasoning for that is because I grew up in a single-parent household." That household was in Macon, where Montgomery Rice came of age. Speaking in an executive role leading one of just four historically Black medical schools, Montgomery Rice may seem far from her roots now. But just up the road in Atlanta, she hasn't forgotten what Macon has taught her – from beloved teachers at Southwest High School to a love of Nu-Way hot dogs (with fries and a chocolate shake) – that led to a passion for leveling the playing field in education and a dedication to training physicians who will improve health outcomes for Georgians. Faith, friday night football, and family Montgomery Rice's journey to being a boundary- breaking woman – the first female president in MSM's history – starts with another boundary- breaking woman, her mother. As a female machinist at Georgia Kraft Paper Company, Montgomery Rice's mother was competitive in a male-dominated field and was able to achieve stability to raise four little girls. "That job changed the trajectory of our lives," she said. "She was very clear that education was the equalizer and that she wanted more for us than she had ever accomplished." That included whispering positive affirmations in her girls' ears when she would get home from the midnight shift: "All things are possible. You can be anything you want to be." "My mother did not know osmosis, but she believed in positivity and that that could change our lives," Montgomery Rice explained. She said growing up in Macon meant a foundation of traditions, with

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