| Faculty
Longtime librarian and faculty member Prilla Speer retired June 30, closing a chapter that started long before her professional career even began.
Speer first came to the University as a transfer student from Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, where she had grown up after spending part of her childhood in India. Her parents served as medical missionaries there, and her father helped establish Baptist Christian Hospital in Assam, India, which continues to serve patients today.
Though Speer originally studied history with dreams of working in the National Archives, her path changed while she was a student at Trevecca. After taking a children’s literature class taught by the library director, she was invited to work in the library while pursuing her master’s degree in library science through George Peabody College for Teachers, which later merged with Vanderbilt University.
What began as an unexpected opportunity became a calling that spanned almost 50 years.
“I felt planted by God,” Speer said.
Speer graduated from Trevecca in 1978 and earned her master’s degree in 1979. She began her library career at Trevecca soon after, starting as a circulation librarian in what was then Mackey Library. Over the years, her roles evolved from circulation to reference, online learning services and teaching, allowing her to serve generations of students in a variety of ways.
Speer is a firm believer in the library’s importance to the heartbeat of the University.
“People who don’t understand a library’s connection to a campus probably think it’s just about checking out books,” Speer said. “But it’s really a flourishing, thriving place to engage and grow.”
As Trevecca expanded, Speer helped the library expand with it. What began in a basement classroom in Mackey saw Speer travel to off-site graduate and adult studies cohorts in cities across Tennessee and beyond, bringing library resources and research support directly to students. Before online databases and digital access became standard, that often meant traveling with a computer, printer and stacks of paper, helping students search for articles and request copies of materials.
“We brought the library to them,” Speer said.
Speer also witnessed major changes in Trevecca’s physical library spaces. She saw it move into Waggoner Library, a building she credits largely to the vision of former library director Ray Thrasher. Speer said Thrasher’s leadership helped make the current library building possible, while later directors continued to shape the space into the welcoming, student-centered environment it is today.
“Without Ray's vision, we would not have the building we're in now,” Speer said.
Throughout her years at Trevecca, Speer often returned to one phrase: “Bloom where you’re planted.”
She first encountered the phrase as a high school student, and it stayed with her through decades of work. To Speer, it meant being fruitful and willing to grow wherever God placed her.
“I didn’t want to just come in day to day and do my job,” Speer said. “I kept asking, ‘How do I flourish?’ That’s not about me, but it’s about my colleagues. It’s about the library. It’s about the connection to campus, student and faculty experiences.”
That philosophy also shaped how she viewed leadership. Speer helped establish a formal library instruction program at Trevecca, working with English faculty to teach students how to conduct research and use library resources effectively.
Her influence reached beyond research instruction and library services. Speer helped raise the visibility of the library through student engagement and even some campus traditions. One of those traditions was bringing therapy dogs to the library during finals week, a program she helped coordinate for about a decade through community partners.
The impact of those relationships became especially evident during her retirement celebrations. Speer said former colleagues, professors, community members and even one of the therapy dog partners came to honor her, reminding her that the value of her work was found in relationships.
Speer is quick to credit the library team for the work accomplished over the years.
“All the things that I've been able to do in the library have flourished because of the library team,” Speer said. “They have been willing to roll with these crazy ideas.”
As she moves into retirement, Speer says she does so with a deep sense of peace. After decades of loving her work, she says God has been recentering her values and helping her prepare for a new season.
“I have such peace,” Speer said. “God has given me such peace about retirement.”
Speer plans to continue teaching in Trevecca’s online library science program and as an adjunct professor in the master’s in curriculum and instruction program. She also looks forward to spending more time with family, including visiting siblings in Minnesota, seeing nieces and nephews and spending time with her new grandson.
For Speer, retirement is yet another opportunity to bloom where she’s planted.