University of Virginia third-year student Gregory Perryman grew up asking questions.
In his grandfather’s small storefront church on Cleveland’s east side, Perryman didn’t just listen. He wondered. He was curious about the way the world worked, about people’s stories, about how faith, family and community connected. Sunday church services were long, often stretching into the afternoon. But for Perryman, those hours were filled with moments of observation and learning.
Perryman is pictured here with his paternal grandfather, Henry, at his high school graduation. (Contributed photo)
“There’s a little sign and one of the letters was always crooked,” he recalled of the marquee for Antioch Chapel Baptist Church, founded in 1972 by his grandfather, Henry Perryman, now 98 years old. “It was overall just like a small church. There was a sanctuary and then there was a fellowship hall next door. There was one bathroom in the back.”
The setting was humble, but the impact, he said, was lasting. What stood out most to Perryman wasn’t the building. It was the people, conversations and the space. “You never knew how long service would be,” he said with a laugh. “From my grandfather’s perspective, they used to go to church all day, like dusk to dawn. So if we had a three-hour service, that was great.”
In between hymns and sermons, Perryman developed a habit that would shape his life: listening followed by questions. He said he didn’t just absorb lessons; he examined them. It’s a mindset he’s carried to UVA and one he says he will bring with him into his next role as the student member of the University’s Board of Visitors, UVA’s governing body.
Perryman will begin his one-year term June 1, attending his first full board meeting June 5-6.
He said he sees his responsibility not as having all the solutions, but as having the curiosity to seek them out.
Eighteen Countries in Two Summers
Perryman has packed a lot into his first three years at UVA. A Jefferson and Echols scholar, he is studying in the politics honors program with just five other students. “It is definitely the smallest major at UVA,” he said. “It is one of the coolest programs at UVA, focused on purely digging deep, asking questions, making arguments and just being curious and exploring. It’s what I came here to do.”
Perryman, who had never been abroad, was also determined to travel when he came to UVA. As soon as he got to Charlottesville, he secured a grant to pay for his passport from the International Studies Office. “They have a program to support Pell Grant-eligible students. I come from a low-income background,” he said.
He didn’t waste time, traveling as much as he could during the summers after his first and second years. “It started with a pretty ambitious summer after my first year, where I got to nine countries,” he said.
He helped pay for the travel by winning one of just 12 Frederick Douglass Global Fellowships in the country. He’s had his passport punched in Ireland, Sweden, Singapore, India and Senegal, to name a few of his destinations.
“In Singapore, I got to go to the top of that hotel in ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the view from there!”
Getting Down to Board Business
“A major and important part of our University community is the Board of Visitors and its responsibility to set the long-term vision of this University,” Perryman said. The board’s connection to the students, he said, is “also an immensely important one and ultimately, one that I wanted to strengthen.”
He figured his two-year experience as a student representative to an advisory committee at the University of Virginia Investment Management Company would also come in handy.
