On a gray winter morning in Bellingham, I sit across from Whatcom Community College’s (WCC) new president, Dr. Justin Guillory, in his office. He doesn’t start with titles or plans. Instead, Guillory introduces himself the way he says he learned to understand the world: through family and place.
“I’m Nez Perce and Hispanic on my mom’s side, African American on my dad’s,” Guillory tells me, grounding his story in the reservation community of Lapwai, Idaho, where he grew up before ever imagining a college presidency. As Guillory talks, he keeps circling back to that landscape and those people, like he’s bringing them into the room with us.
For students meeting Guillory in Kulshan Hall or passing him on the Laidlaw lawn, “President Justin” is WCC’s fifth president and a new face on campus. But as he reminds me, Guillory’s path to Bellingham runs through tribal homelands, Friday night football fields, and more than two decades in Native‑serving higher education.
Guillory was raised in Lapwai – a small, rural town on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Idaho, where community, culture, and extended family framed his childhood. His mother is a Nez Perce tribal member and Hispanic woman, and his father is African American — a mixed heritage Guillory says taught him early how to move between different worlds while staying grounded in who he is.
“When you grow up in Lapwai, everybody knows you,” Guillory tells me. “You’re not just your own person – you belong to your family, your tribe, your community. That’s where I first learned what responsibility looks like.”
That balance was tested when his family moved to Olympia, Washington, at the start of his freshman year of high school – a shift from a tight‑knit tribal community to a larger, unfamiliar city.
Guillory describes that move as “a cultural shock” that forced him to learn how to connect with people from different backgrounds and to carry his home community with him even when he was far from it.
“I had to figure out who I was outside the reservation,” Guillory says. “But I also realized I didn’t want to leave that part of me behind.”
Sports, scholarships, and expectation
In high school, sports became one of Guillory’s first bridges out into the wider world. Guillory played football, basketball, and ran track, eventually earning a full‑ride scholarship to Eastern Washington University, where his older brother was already studying.
On the field, Guillory learned to value effort over outcome, finding lessons in resilience, grit, and showing up for his team that he now connects directly to student success.
“Sports taught me that you don’t always control the score,” Guillory says, “but you control your effort, your preparation, and how you respond when things don’t go your way.”
At home, Guillory’s parents – both first‑generation college students – set clear expectations that education mattered. Guillory remembers them not as people who pushed him toward a specific career, but as people who refused to let him aim small.
“College, for my parents, wasn’t optional,” Guillory says. “They saw it as a way to honor our ancestors and create opportunities for the next generation.”
After earning his bachelor’s degree in Recreation and Sports Management, Guillory deepened his interest in how colleges could better serve Native and rural students by pursuing a master’s in higher education administration at Washington State University.
Early on, Guillory worked as a graduate assistant and mentor program coordinator within the university’s Office of Multicultural Student Services, supporting students who, like him, were navigating unfamiliar institutions.
“I saw students who were brilliant but didn’t see themselves in the institution,” Guillory says. “That’s when I started asking: What would it look like if colleges were actually built with students like us in mind?”
Finding his calling at Northwest Indian College
A turning point came in 2001, when Guillory was hired as the first site manager for Northwest Indian College (NWIC) on the Nez Perce Reservation, bringing college courses directly to his home community. Watching the first graduates from that satellite campus walk across the stage confirmed for Guillory that place‑based, culturally grounded higher education could change entire families’ trajectories.
“When I watched our first students graduate back home, I thought, ‘This is why I’m in higher ed,’” Guillory recalls. “You could see the pride on their families’ faces. You knew those kids coming up behind them were going to see college differently.”
That experience pushed Guillory to pursue a PhD in higher education administration, focusing on student success and particularly on Native students whose potential was often overlooked.
Over his more than twenty years at NWIC, Guillory moved from Nez Perce site coordinator to dean roles and then to the presidency, eventually serving twelve years as NWIC’s president on the Lummi Indian Reservation.
Under Guillory’s leadership, NWIC completed accreditation reaffirmations in 2017 and 2024, launched three of its four bachelor’s degree programs, and became an accredited distance‑learning institution.
Guillory also helped guide the college through the COVID‑19 pandemic, overseeing a rapid shift from face‑to‑face classes to online platforms and expanding skills for staff and faculty to operate at a distance. “
We were building the plane while we were flying it,” Guillory says. “But our priority was simple: keep students connected, supported, and moving forward.”
During Guillory’s tenure, NWIC completed major campus projects including an $8 million Health and Wellness Center and a $3 million Community Resource Center – investments that reflect his emphasis on whole‑student support and community impact.
“A classroom isn’t the only place learning happens,” Guillory says. “If students are hungry, if they’re stressed, if they don’t feel safe, they’re not going to succeed. So we built spaces that honored the whole person.”
Throughout his career, Guillory has emphasized that his leadership is grounded in community, family, and culture. He often credits his parents and his wife for sustaining his work in higher education, framing his success as a collective effort rather than a solo climb.
“I don’t see myself as a self‑made leader,” Guillory tells me. “I’m community‑made. Every step I’ve taken, there’s been someone behind me, beside me, or in front of me showing the way.”
That perspective shapes how Guillory talks about leadership: not as a top‑down role, but as an obligation to create conditions in which students, faculty, and staff can thrive together.
Guillory is clear that students – especially those facing significant barriers – succeed when institutions provide supportive leadership, dedicated teachers, and a web of people who believe in their potential.
“Leadership, to me, is about asking, ‘Who’s not in the room? Who’s not being heard?’” Guillory says. “If we’re not making space for those students, then we’re not doing our job.”
Joining the WCC Family
Guillory officially stepped into the role on May 1, 2025, succeeding longtime president Dr. Kathi Hiyane‑Brown, who had led WCC for 18 years.
“I am deeply honored to join the WCC family,” Guillory said in his announcement statement. In our conversation, he expands on that idea.
“What attracted me to Whatcom was the sense that this is a place that cares about students and about community,” Guillory says. “I saw a chance to continue the work I’ve been doing my whole career, just in a new context.”
For him, the move to WCC is less a break from his past than a continuation of the same mission: helping students from all backgrounds access and complete college.
Guillory says he wants students to experience him not as a distant figure confined to an office, but as someone they actually see and interact with around campus. Guillory’s approach is to be visible in hallways and common spaces, to stop and talk with students, and to offer what he calls warm handoffs to resources—personally connecting students to support instead of just pointing them toward a website.
“I don’t want students to feel like the president is some mysterious person on the top floor,” Guillory says. “If you see me on campus, say hi. If you’re struggling, I want to help connect you to someone who can walk with you, not just send you a link.”
Guillory believes a sense of belonging often starts with small gestures: remembering a name, acknowledging the weight a student is carrying, or simply asking how they are and listening long enough to hear the real answer.
“For a lot of our students, they might be the first in their family to be here,” Guillory says. “One moment of recognition can be the difference between them staying and slipping away.”
When he talks about the challenges ahead – for students and for colleges – Guillory often reaches for images drawn from the natural world.
“Our ancestors taught us to face the storm, not run from it,” Guillory says. “Buffalo turn into the wind. Orcas move together. That’s how I think about this moment in higher ed—we’re going to have to go through it together.”
Those metaphors tie back to his Nez Perce heritage and to teachings passed down from ancestors who endured upheaval and displacement yet insisted on thinking generations ahead. Leading Whatcom, Guillory suggests, means asking what kind of college today’s students will leave for those who come after them—and how decisions made now can clear paths instead of adding new barriers.
As he settles into his presidency, Guillory returns to a simple commitment: students’ goals come first. That means identifying financial, academic, cultural, and bureaucratic obstacles and doing the difficult, often slow work of removing them so more students can complete degrees, support their families, and give back to their communities.
“It’s not enough to get students in the door,” Guillory says. “Our responsibility is to help them get through, in a way that honors who they are and where they come from.”
Guillory also believes in challenging students, not just comforting them—pushing them to see themselves as future leaders in their own right, capable of shaping institutions the way he has.
“I want students here to know: you belong in these rooms,” Guillory says. “You might be the one sitting in this chair someday.”
From Lapwai to Bellingham, from sports fields to presidential offices, Guillory’s philosophy has become a guiding principle behind WCC’s approach to the new challenges our college now faces.
This article was initially published in the Horizon’s sixth magazine issue, with a release date of April 22, 2026. Please check out the magazine on the newsstands while copies last!
