Kenneth Starr, a GW alumnus famous for his role as a special prosecutor in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals, was named president of Baylor University last week.

The Baylor Board of Regents elected Starr unanimously Feb. 12, according to a news release from the University. Starr, 63, is the 14th president and first non-Baptist to lead Baylor, the largest Baptist university in the world, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald.

The son of a Church of Christ minister, the Texas native attended a Church of Christ school, Harding College, before transferring to GW in 1966. Starr graduated in 1968 and while at GW became a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, a Foreign Service fraternity.

Starr said he will join a Baptist church when he moves to Waco.

“With its great tradition in the Christian world and its growing international reputation as a research university that continues to care deeply about undergraduate education, Baylor is poised to have an increasingly expanding global impact,” Starr said in the Baylor release.

Starr served as U.S. Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993. A year later, he was appointed to serve as independent counsel in the investigation into President Bill Clinton and now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s participation in an Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater. His findings, known as the Starr Report, were released in 1998 and focused on Clinton’s actions during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and led to Clinton’s impeachment.

A day after his position was announced Feb. 15, Starr told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he was sorry about the Lewinsky scandal.

“Who’s not sorrowful for [that] entire chapter in American history?” Starr said.

Starr is currently serving as the dean of Pepperdine University’s Law School and will begin his term at Baylor in June. u