Via LinkedIn
Sylvia Trent-Adams, president of The University of North Texas Health Science Center Fort Worth, has resigned her position, according to the school.
Her exit becomes effective Jan. 31.
The UNT System Board of Regents appointed Kirk Calhoun as interim president.
“The Board of Regents and the UNT System are grateful for Dr. Trent-Adams’ contributions and service to HSC,” according to a press release. “Both as president and previously as executive vice president and chief strategy officer, Dr. Trent-Adams served HSC and its students with dedication, integrity, and respect.”
Trent-Adams took over as HSC’s seventh president in September 2022, succeeding Michael R. Williams, who was appointed chancellor of the UNT System. Prior to being elevated to president, Trent-Adams served as HSC’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
“This is a pivotal moment for HSC — one full of extraordinary possibilities to pursue new ideas, serve the community, and innovate education and health care — but also a time of unique challenges in an ever-changing higher education landscape,” Williams said at the time. “Such an era calls for skillful leadership, strategic thinking, and disciplined execution. Dr. Trent-Adams has been providing just that.”
Trent-Adams was the first Black woman to lead a health science center in Texas. She began her healthcare career in 1987 in the U.S. Army. In 1992, she joined the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps before ultimately retiring in 2020 with the rank of Rear Admiral Upper Half. She has held the positions of deputy associate administrator for the HIV/AIDS Bureau in the Health Resources and Services Administration; deputy surgeon general; acting surgeon general; and principal deputy assistant secretary for health.
The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine opened in 1970. In 1975, TCOM came under the umbrella of North Texas State University, which later evolved into the UNT System that now includes campuses in Denton and Dallas. With the establishment in 1993 of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, TCOM expanded to become the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
HSC began offering its first undergraduate degree — a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences — in fall 2022, and the university now has more than 2,300 students taking classes in-person and online.
Calhoun is the former president of UT Tyler. He retired in May.
In 2002, Calhoun was chosen president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. Under his leadership, the institution experience significant and the campus became an accredited academic health institution.
Calhoun was named board chair for the UT Health East Texas Health System, created after a large health system acquisition in March 2018. UTHET owns and operates 10 hospitals, an academic multi-specialty physician group practice, more than 50 clinics, emergency transport services, a home health agency, and health enterprises across rural East Texas.
In 2020, he was selected as the president of the newly consolidated UT Tyler, which merged the general academic and health science center campuses in Tyler under his leadership.
During Calhoun’s presidency at UT Tyler, the university experienced record enrollment growth and historic philanthropic giving. In January 2023, Calhoun, was joined by Gov. Greg Abbott and other system leaders in breaking ground on the $308 million UT Tyler Medical Education Building. It is set to open this year.
After his retirement, Calhoun stayed on part time as a professor of medicine.
