Neurologist, dean, CDC officer — and now Baylor provost

Just before Christmas, President Ken Starr announced the appointment of Dr. Edwin Trevathan as executive vice president and provost — essentially, Baylor’s chief academic officer.

Trevathan will follow interim provost David Garland, who has filled the post since Dr. Elizabeth Davis, BBA ’84, left last June to become president of Furman University. Trevathan will certainly bring a vast array of experience and an impressive resume when he begins work at Baylor in June; he’ll also bring a lifelong passion for education in a faith-based environment.

A practicing neurologist, Dean of the College for Public Health and Social Justice at Saint Louis University, and a former officer at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Trevathan’s leadership experience includes both academics and practical experience, including work handling global response to disease outbreaks.

Prior to his four years as dean at Saint Louis University, Trevathan was on faculty at Emory University, the University of Kentucky and Washington University in St. Louis, all the while serving as a pediatric neurologist (he was neurologist-in-chief at St. Louis Children’s Hospital) and medical officer for the CDC, where he led the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. When the H1N1 flu epidemic broke out in 2009, Trevathan was tapped to lead the strategic response in pediatrics.

But you could also say he was being prepared for this opportunity long before he earned such impressive credentials. As a graduate of Lipscomb University (a small Christian school in Nashville) and the son of a Lipscomb professor, Trevathan was steeped in Christian higher education from an early age.

“I am thrilled to have this opportunity to serve one of the world’s outstanding Christian universities and to assist the faculty in fulfilling the great promise of Pro Futuris,” he says. “Speaking as a product of Christian higher education, I think one of the things that has made me have whatever success I’ve had as a physician and a scientist is that I had education that really educated me as a whole person. … The environment at a Christian university, where people are really pursuing truth as a manifestation of faith and service to the poorest of citizens is something that really sort of brings all parts of life together.”

Sic ’em, Dr. Trevathan!