The road from Lipscomb leads Ed Trevathan to Baylor University
Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 |
When Ed Trevathan steps foot on the Baylor University campus each morning as its newly appointed provost, he is entering a world that has been as much a natural part of his life as breathing.
Trevathan, who officially took office as the executive vice president and provost of the 16,787-student university located in Waco, Texas, takes with him deep roots in academia, which were planted decades ago when he was a young boy.
It’s a story that began when Trevathan’s father, Norman (’54), attended Lipscomb University and met his mother, Joyce Brent (’54). Norman graduated, married and was appointed a professor of history and political science at Lipscomb, a position he held from September 1958-August 1981, with a brief leave in 1963-64 to pursue his graduate studies.
“I grew up on the Lipscomb campus,” says Trevathan. “I sat in the back of my father’s classroom countless times and often walked home with him. My parents often entertained students in their home, and I learned very early that students came first.”
“My dad and his colleagues invested in the lives of their students both in and out of the classroom. I saw firsthand how he and other faculty made sacrifices for their students, for their scholarship and for their university that often went unnoticed. I saw in my dad that professors have the opportunity to change the lives of students who then go out and have a positive impact on the world.”
It was that sense of mission and purpose that young Ed Trevathan saw lived out daily by his father that stuck with him and led him on a career path that he could not have imagined back in the days of sitting at a desk in the back of his father’s classes in Burton. Those days also sparked a profound appreciation for the mission of Christian higher education because of the way it shaped his life and, ultimately led him to the provost’s seat at Baylor this past summer.
When Trevathan was old enough to go to school, he attended Lipscomb University’s campus school, known today as Lipscomb Academy, from which he graduated in 1974 as a “Lipscomb lifer.” Trevathan naturally chose to attend Lipscomb to pursue what would become the first of his three academic degrees. It was a decision that set the course for a future that he could not have predicted as a young freshman.
He recalls a conversation he had with a fellow student while standing in line in McQuiddy Gym to register for his first quarter of college classes.
“We had to get in line alphabetically with scan cards,” Trevathan recalls with a chuckle. “The lines were often long, and while standing in line a college senior who happened to be there asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him that I wanted to become a lawyer. By the time I found my way to the front of the line, my student colleague had convinced me that my love of science should lead me to a career in medicine.”
Before long, Trevathan found himself enrolled in an honors chemistry class with professor James Wood, and his interest in medicine and science became a fixture.
“Dr. Wood was a very good teacher,” says Trevathan. “Then I had Paul Langford for organic chemistry. He was such a gifted teacher, one of the most gifted teachers I’ve ever known. I didn’t fully appreciate him until I became a professor.”
He also credits science faculty David Johnston, John Netterville, Ronnie Boone and Oliver Yates along with Dennis Loyd and Mack Wayne Craig, for also having a profound impact on him.
“They were a great group of faculty,” says Trevathan. “They also sparked a love of discovery in me that led me to a very interesting career that I would not have embarked on otherwise.”
While a Lipscomb student, Trevathan was very active on campus. He was elected student body president and may or may not have information about the infamous “Juan says” signs that appeared on campus during his days as a student. And he met his future wife, Linda Scott (’76), a sociology major whose parents Harold and Mary (Nikolaus) Scott were in college with Trevathan’s parents at Lipscomb.
“I’m just about at Lipscomb as one can be,” Trevathan says. “I developed lifelong friends there. I had close relationships with my professors and staff members, and they were very important to me and helped me to become a better person. At Lipscomb they want to education the whole person.”
“What I received at Lipscomb was a great liberal arts education that prepared me for a life of learning and of leadership. I couldn’t have been better prepared for life than I was by going to Lipscomb University.”
In December 1977, Trevathan graduated from Lipscomb as salutatorian of his class. In 1982, he received his master’s degree in public health from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and his medical degree from the Emory University School of Medicine. He was the first student at Emory to receive both the MD and MPH degrees jointly. Trevathan completed residencies and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale-New Haven Medical Center, Yale University School of Medicine; and Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Trevathan began his career as an epidemic intelligence service officer at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which he says was an intense, two-year program.
“This is an elite group that the CDC would mobilize to try to stop epidemics around the world,” he recalls. “I saw a lot of action in that role.”
Following that assignment, Trevathan opened a pediatric neurology practice in Atlanta while continuing to work with the CDC and serve on faculty at Emory University.
“I loved medicine, but I realized that I loved academics more,” says Trevathan, who maintained his practice from 1989-1995.
It didn’t take long for Trevathan to find a way to blend his medical knowledge and experience with his passion for academia. From 1995-98, he helped launch and build the University of Kentucky’s comprehensive epilepsy center. Washington University in Saint Louis reached out to Trevathan to grow its pediatric epilepsy center and launch its adult epilepsy center.
So the Trevathans moved west to Saint Louis where he provided academic leadership as director of the university’s epilepsy center where he was also appointed director of the Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology, which has been among the nation’s top neurology units in extramural research funding. He also was neurologist-in-chief at Saint Louis Children’s Hospital, where he oversaw a large division of academic pediatric neurologists and Ph.D. researchers.
While Trevathan was busily serving at the University of Kentucky and Washington University, he continued to conduct CDC-funded research and by 2007 he had a 20-year history with the organization. The next stop on his career path was back at the CDC where he began his career.
From 2007-2010, Trevathan was director of the CDC’S National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. As a member of the senior leadership team, he was responsible for many of the CDC’s activities in areas of child development, maternal and child health, genetics, blood disorders, birth defects and developmental disabilities.
Trevathan returned to the academic world in September 2010 as a professor of epidemiology, pediatrics and neurology, and dean of and professor in the university’s College for Public Health and Social Justice, which includes five departments that cover the range of public health sciences, health management and policy, as well as the School of Social Work and programs in criminology, biosecurity and global health.
“I was travelling two simultaneous paths on this road to Baylor,” he says. “One was to study the brain. I’ve been fascinated with the brain since I was a student, and I’m still a student attempting to achieve the impossible – to truly understand the human brain.”
“The other path was epidemiology and public health,” he continues. “It’s the antithesis of clinical medicine in which you have a relationship with one patient at a time. In public health, your patient is a community, a nation or the entire world – tough work, but if you’re successful you can help thousands to millions of people whom you will never meet. As a Christian, public health seems a natural way to show love to a dark world.”
This past summer, that path led Trevathan to a destination he didn’t expect to reach.
“As a physician and an academic, I have always wanted to work at a Christian university,” he admits. “It’s something I always thought I would enjoy, but I just didn’t know that I would have the opportunity.”
On June 1, 2015, Trevathan started his new career path at Baylor University’s executive vice president and provost. He is also professor of neuroscience at the institution.
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve at an outstanding Christian university like Baylor,” Trevathan says. “Baylor embodies the Christian mission that I learned at Lipscomb. When I visited Baylor to consider this new opportunity, it reminded me of the community that I felt at Lipscomb. Baylor maintains a deep and abiding commitment to scholarship and discovery across all disciplines, which it exercises powerfully in the context of Christian community, and a dedication to preparing women and men for lives of service. This is what I grew up with in all the days I grew up and was a student at Lipscomb.”
Baylor University president and chancellor Ken Starr says Trevathan brings to the position not only strong credentials, but also an enthusiasm for the institution’s unique mission.
“As chief academic officer, he will be charged with advancing the university’s academic programs and providing oversight on vitally important matters of academic affairs,” Starr said in a released statement. “In his own collaborative way, Dr. Trevathan will provide leadership to the academic enterprise while vigorously supporting the bedrock principles of shared governance and academic freedom. We know he will make a powerful impact on our future progress, and we are delighted to welcome him to the Baylor family.”
Trevathan says the job of a provost in today’s world is challenging. The challenges of the rising cost of higher education, rapidly changing technology and increasing avenues for access to a college education are among the top issues he says provosts will continue to face in the foreseeable future.