Judge Ken Starr, president of Baylor University and former Independent Counsel for five investigations including Whitewater and the Clinton administration, will be speaking at the Indiana Wesleyan University Faith and Learning Luncheon on Thursday, April 5.
The private luncheon culminates the tenth annual IWU Celebration of Scholarship. The event, beginning April 3, features scholarly presentations from undergraduate and graduate students and their faculty mentors. Judge Starr will be speaking on the topic of "The Christian Scholar as a Public Servant."
"He's [Starr] very interested and concerned about how Christian scholarship is a training ground for public service," says Todd Ream, Senior Scholar for Faith and Scholarship in the IWU John Wesley Honors College. "College presidents, arguably today, are so much in the public that they have no choice but to be public servants in the larger sense, because they work well beyond their campuses."
Celebration of Scholarship, hosted by the John Wesley Honors College, challenges students and faculty to think more deeply about what it means to be a Christ-centered community of academic excellence.
Previous luncheon speakers have included Arthur Holmes, a philosopher from Wheaton College;Books & Culture editor John Wilson; Elizabeth R. Schiltz, an associate professor of law from the University of St. Thomas; Jeanne Heffernan Schindler, a humanities professor from Villanova University; John W. Wright, a professor of theology and Christian Scripture from Point Loma Nazarene University; and Kim Phipps, president of Messiah College.
Prior to accepting his current role as Baylor's president, Judge Starr served for six years as dean and professor of law at Pepperdine University. He is also counsel to the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he was a partner from 1993 to 2004. Starr was solicitor general of the United States from 1989 to 1993 and argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989, as law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1975 to 1977, and as law clerk to Fifth Circuit Judge David W. Dyer from 1973 to 1974. Starr was appointed to serve as Independent Counsel for five investigations, including Whitewater, from 1994 to 1999. Judge Starr earned his B.A. from George Washington University in 1968, his M.A. from Brown University in 1969, and his J.D. from Duke University Law School in 1973. he is the author of more than 25 publications, including his book First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life, which was published in 2002.