Valerie Montgomery Rice

The third of four daughters, Valerie Montgomery Rice was born in 1961, in Macon, Georgia. Her parents had a tumultuous marriage, and Montgomery Rice's earliest memories are of an anxiety-filled household. "My father was abusive to my mother," she says. "She never knew what to expect when he came through the door, so there was a fair amount of tension all the time."

In addition to the tension she felt at home, Montgomery Rice often faced racism at school. "I was bussed when I started the second grade and had only one other black girl in my class. Before that year, I had done well in school, but my second-grade teacher often told me I was a poor performer. She even put me and my black classmate under her desk, telling us we didn't need to learn. That was a stressful time for me. My home life was full of tension created by an abusive alcoholic father. So it was during this uncertain time for me both at home and school that I became ill."

Montgomery Rice developed osteomyelitis, a bone infection, which began with a tender ankle accompanied by a fever. One day, she was sleeping on the living room couch, unable to walk when her father, who had a restraining order against him at that time, burst through the window firing a gun. Montgomery Rice's sister dragged Montgomery Rice across the floor to safety.

The next day, Montgomery Rice was hospitalized for her osteomyelitis, where she was treated for three months. During that time, her mother started divorce proceedings, and rented an apartment for herself and her daughters. Soon thereafter, Montgomery Rice's father was incarcerated for other infractions, and Montgomery Rice never developed a future relationship with him.

The family was poorer in their new circumstances, but Montgomery Rice was thankful for the absence of stress and hostility. Her mother worked the swing shift at a paper mill and made her daughters's well-being her top priority. "My mother had lots of grit," says Montgomery Rice. "She taught us to work hard and told us if we fell down, we just had to get back up."

For two months following her release from the hospital, Montgomery Rice walked with the aid of crutches and had to use the school bus for children with special needs, which dropped her off on the way to another school. Although through the third-grade Montgomery Rice was teased by other students for riding on this bus, she was grateful for the experience. "Those kids on the bus had a grounding effect on me," she says. "I started reading to them, and I helped them a little with their reading and math. If I was in the middle of reading a story out loud, our driver would slow down to give me time to finish it. It was a very humbling experience for me and has stayed with me my whole life. It taught me that everyone has value."

After her parents's divorce, Montgomery Rice began attending the new segregated black school near their apartment. With her new school offering acceptance and security and her home life more stabilized, she excelled in her studies. Eventually Montgomery Rice's mother secured a better job at the Georgia Kraft Paper Company. When Montgomery Rice was in the ninth grade, her mother purchased a house for them. "That's when my mother really started pushing education," says Montgomery Rice. "She wanted her girls to get out of Macon, and she believed the only way to do that was through education. She knew it wouldn't be easy, but she was positive and determined. She worked the night shift for 25 years, and when she came home she would enter our rooms and whisper to us while we slept, '˜All things are possible. There are no limitations.' She was a strong woman who taught me accountability, resilience, giving back, helping others, and hard work."

Anxious to earn her own money when she was 16, Montgomery Rice got a job at McDonald's, and kept it for two years. In high school, she was president of her senior class, a cheerleader, homecoming queen, a member of the marching band, an A student, and the salutatorian of her senior class of more than 1,000 students. She attended the Georgia Institute of Technology as a cooperative education student, and interned with Proctor and Gamble until her junior year when she realized that engineering was the wrong career for her. "It felt too isolating," she says. "I wanted something that would offer more interactions with people. My mother thought I was crazy, but I knew I had to go in a different direction. I went to an encyclopedia and looked up fields that include helping people. The one that jumped out at me was medicine, so I decided I would go to medical school." Because Georgia Tech did not offer a medical program, Montgomery Rice spoke to an adviser at Spelman College. "The adviser told me I had to take the MCAT and biology before I graduated. I didn't study for the test, but luckily I did well on it."

The summer before she graduated, Montgomery Rice attended a program at Harvard for minority students. She graduated with a degree in chemistry, and was accepted to all of the medical programs she had applied to. She chose to attend Harvard Medical School. "Up to that point, I had been raised in a very black and white world," she says. "I felt I needed to get a broader perspective. I believe that the life experiences that people have allow them to add to the richness of solutions to problems. I don't limit my definition of diversity based only on physical attributes. It is really more about life experiences."

Montgomery Rice dedicated her life to serving others from varied backgrounds, both locally and globally. Her career has spanned more than three decades in advancing women's health and wellness through her research, teaching, and clinical efforts. She was a senior staff physician in obstetrics and gynecology at Henry Ford Medical Center, and then worked as a tenured associate professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center before becoming a department vice chair.

In 2003, she became a tenured professor and chair of Meharry Medical College's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. While at Meharry, Montgomery Rice secured a $10 million construction grant that resulted in the Center for Women's Health Research, one of the nation's first research centers devoted exclusively to learning why women of color are at greater risk of certain diseases and how biology, race, and economics contribute to women's health disparities.

In 2011, Montgomery Rice became the dean and executive vice president of Morehouse School of Medicine. She later became the school's first female president. She renovated and enhanced the research core facilities lab, expanded the M. Delmar Edwards Library, launched the Academic Expansion Campaign, and her Excellence through Health Equity plan significantly increased the number of students in the Doctor of Medicine program.

Montgomery Rice has learned from each of her varied roles as a teacher, researcher, doctor, and administrator. "A teacher expands the minds of learners and opens the passion boxes of students. As a researcher, I discovered. And as an administrator, I love creating the environment for success to happen. I feel that I have prepared my whole life for my current position, to be at an institution that was founded on principles I believe in, where we are creating access to high-quality health care and health equity for all. I didn't wake up one day and say, '˜Oh, I want to be the president of a medical school.' I didn't even know something like this existed for people like me. So I have come to a place that I didn't expect, but I know I'm in the right place at the right time."

Montgomery Rice believes it is important to be authentic in day-today life. "I try to ensure that at my core I am driven by my passion and my purpose," she says. "Medicine allowed me to find my passion, and leadership allowed me to find my purpose. Merging those two things has given me a platform where I can make a real difference in other lives. But to do that, people first have to see that you care and are genuine."

Of her Horatio Alger Award, Montgomery Rice says, "I am proud, excited, and humbled by it. I look forward to the opportunity it will give me to contribute to the Scholars, helping them to understand how to reach their greatest potential."

Through mentorship, community engagements, lectures, empowerment speeches, and social media, Montgomery Rice shepherds the future generation, providing keys for success and instilling the importance of education and commitment to excellence. She supports various organizations, including the Girls Scouts of America, the National Medical Fellows, March of Dimes, Society for Women's Health Research, United Negro College Fund, and the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In 2016, Montgomery Rice was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, which is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.