At the age of 16, he enrolled as a student at Howard University to pursue a dual B.S./M.D. program, but given his drive and desire to succeed, it isn’t that far-fetched to believe even then he may have had an inkling that 26 years later he would return to campus as Dr. Wayne Frederick, the university’s 17th president.
Hindsight tends to almost always be crystal clear, but the signs were there that the boy born in Diamond Vale, Trinidad, was destined for a tremendous amount of success.
Wayne Alix Ian Frederick has been on the historically Black campus for more than three decades — first as a student, then a faculty member and administrator. He was named interim president in 2013 and assumed the position permanently a year later.
“Howard summons, molds and disseminates community-shapers, history-makers and world-changers, whose impact is measured not by the headlines we make, but by the truths we reveal and the service we provide,” Dr. Frederick said on Howard University’s website. “At Howard, excellence is not the exception – it is expected.”
An article on Trinidad and Tobago’s National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology website says, “according to family lore, Wayne Frederick decided to become a doctor when he was just three years old!”
Being diagnosed with sickle cell anemia and hearing his family members speak about his condition fueled the desire to pursue a career in medicine, while service to others was an extra prescription for motivation.
“If you believe in what it is you’re doing, and you do it with the passion, and you keep the right motivations in front of you, which is that of servant leaders to serve others, you will be successful,” Dr. Frederick said at a Children’s Defense Fund event in 2015.
An alumnus of St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain, Dr. Frederick would go on to become a cancer surgeon, an expert on healthcare disparities, and eventually the distinguished Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine.
Still, those form just the tip of the iceberg of accomplishments, and the list of achievements has its hands full trying to keep pace with the list of accolades.
Dr. Frederick has been named “Super Doctor” by the Washington Post, he’s been listed among Ebony magazine’s “Power 100,” and as a son of the soil he was awarded the Order of the Republic of TT (ORTT), the country’s highest honor, for medicine and education.
Dr. Frederick will retire as Howard University’s president by June 2024.
