Ken Starr Makes Impression at Baylor

Bill Clinton’s one-time legal nemesis is earning some high marks for his new role heading up Texas’ Baylor University, according to a report this weekend in the Dallas Morning News.

The former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr has taken on a new role: In June he became president of Baylor University, the nation’s largest Baptist university.

His new challenge is to transform Baylor “from its traditional role as a somewhat sleepy, second-rate, predominantly regional Baptist school” in Waco, Texas, “to a world-class research university with highly ranked graduate programs,” while remaining a “fully Christian, evangelical university with avowedly Christian professors,” the paper reported.

No Protestant university has previously tried to meet that challenge, the newspaper observes.

Starr was applauded for raising the stature of Pepperdine University’s law school, where he served as dean from 2004 until earlier this year. When Starr started at Pepperdine the law school was ranked 99th in the nation, according to U.S. News. By the time Starr left its ranking rose dramatically, to 52nd in the nation.

Though Starr is not a Baptist, he is winning converts for his folksy manner and for helping to heal divisions at Baylor.

“Starr's success in winning the Baylor community over is at least partly due to his upbeat, disarming personality and his deep religious convictions that are in tune with those generally held at Baylor,” the newspaper said.