As a member of the Student Organization for Black and Hispanic Unity and of Society Organized Against Racism, Woodfork brought a fresh perspective to discussions about racial polarization on campus.
"For a lot of students of color, when they arrive on campus there's an underlying choice: are you going to be involved with black students or be involved with white students? You have to make a conscious decision. I never liked to make that choice," he said. "My mother is white and my dad is black--for me it's like I'm choosing between my parents."
Woodfork was one of the Students of Color United For Change who went to the Campus Community Committee in the spring of 1994 and asked that a residence hall be built to house students interested in multicultural issues. Although the experience was positive, he says, he was dismayed by the rage many of the seniors in the group seemed to feel. "I remember saying to myself, `I don't ever want to become like they are, so angry and so bitter. I'd rather drop out of college,'" he said. He decided to work within the system, as he had in high school, and ran for Student Association vice president on a ticket headed by Bryan Raffetto '95. The two won the election, and Woodfork also was selected as a student representative to the Trustee Commission on Multicultural and Special-Interest Housing, which was formed to address the concerns of the Students of Color United For Change.
James Crawford chaired the commission. He says Woodfork had to overcome a certain amount of skepticism among the trustees. "As a freshman he'd been a member of the student group that wanted separate housing," Crawford said. "So he was seen as a spokesman for an issue that could be a problem. But as time went on and the commission did its work, I found Josh to be a very thoughtful person willing to look at all sides of the issue, not a proponent for one side alone. . . . He was a major contributor on the commission because he could represent student opinion as well as understand the broader issues involving student life."
In the ensuing years, Woodfork's capacity for straddling the lines among students, faculty, trustees, staff and administrators without bamboozling anyone has been nothing short of ambassadorial. He is a sincere, intelligent man who holds strong opinions, but what sets him apart, those who have worked with him say, is his willingness to listen and to keep an open mind. And, says Kim Parker, "he doesn't compromise his integrity for anything."
"It may seem as though he's always self-assured, always knows the answer before he opens his mouth. But that is not the case," said Cedric Bryant, who also served on the trustee commission. "He agonizes as much as the rest of us but does so in a way that allows him, ultimately, to make a decision based on what is reasonable and fair and serves the common good." A prime example, Bryant says, was Woodfork's endorsement of the trustee commission's recommendation that Colby build what is now the Pugh Center rather than opt for special-interest housing. "I was enormously impressed with his ability to understand all points of view and to set aside his own emotional investment--and even his political investment--in the multicultural issue and try to come up with the solution that would serve the greatest need and benefit the largest number of people and do what was best for Colby," Bryant said.
Woodfork says he felt then--and continues to feel--that Colby "is not ready" for multicultural housing. "We're too divided a community, racially, and we don't understand the issues well enough," he said. "We're not there yet. We don't have enough faculty of color; we don't have enough administrators who are people of color who are empathetic, who understand these issues." And students, he says, haven't done enough to challenge the stereotypes that exist on campus. "Students should get in relationship, so they can ask the questions: What is it like to be a student of color? What is it like to be white? They should become friends so they can say, `Hey, what does x mean to you? Don't run up to an international student and say, `What is it like in Zimbabwe?' Know people who are different from yourself."
Indeed, he says--and his friend Parker confirms--that the anonymity of an act carried out against him last fall, when someone wrote "Nigger" across Woodfork's picture on a poster, was almost as wounding as the act itself. "I think the randomness unsettled him," Parker said. "He didn't want to confront the person who did it, but he did want to know who it was."
"This is not the first time someone has called me a nigger and probably won't be the last," Woodfork said. "But when administrators and others were sympathetic because it happened to me I wanted to say, `Don't be upset because this is me. . . . This is not about me as a person, it is about how someone felt about black people.' I was elected to deal with situations like this and take a stance, and I felt like we'd given someone with a green marker the power to take me out of my role."
At a rally the following day on the Miller Library steps, Woodfork faced what he says was his most difficult moment at Colby. And, tellingly, his task in that moment --running on almost no sleep and still "in limbo" over the incident--wasn't to stand before the student body and discuss the obscene epithet on the poster. It was, instead, to announce that a student, Christine Callie '98, had died that morning in Salamanca, Spain.
"Whatever had happened to me, someone else had died," Woodfork said recently. "Her life was gone. And I was going to be telling this to her friends, who didn't know. I didn't know how to mention it at a rally we'd called for a different reason without trivializing it. . . . but it put into perspective what had happened to me. Then I was able to process that. I asked myself, what does it mean to be part of this community, and when you lose a member, how does that make you feel?" The rally turned out to be a high point for those who admire Woodfork's administration, because he carried off his role with the intelligence and dignity for which he is known--no matter how ambivalent he may have felt about the Colby community at that juncture.
Woodfork says that after he graduates on May 25 he will "miss being able to really do things, get people motivated, effect change. This is a positive place, and I hope people appreciate that. You can't get involved as easily at a Howard and actually do things."
If he'll miss Colby, so will Colby miss him.
"Josh is one of those graduating seniors whom you look for at each of those five-year reunions and the kind of student you not only hope you'll hear from often but you know you'll hear about frequently over time," Cedric Bryant said. "Not because they send postcards, but because they're going to make a real contribution to society. I have no doubt that he will."