The First Women to Be Awarded an Honorary Degree at the University of Kansas

In 2010, for the first time in history, the board of regents of the University of Kansas voted to permit the awarding of honorary degrees. The university has announced the first four individuals who will receive honorary degrees at this spring’s commencement services in May. One of the four is a woman.

Sheila C. Bair, is a senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trust. She is the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Bair holds bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Kansas.

Here is a video of Sheila Bair talking about her time at the University of Kansas.

After graduating from law school, Bair taught at the University of Arkansas Law School and then joined the staff of U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. After an unsuccessful run for Congress, she held a seat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. From 2002 to 2006 she was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 2006, she was appointed by President Bush to chair the FDIC.

Bair is the author of two children’s books: Rock, Brock and the Savings Shock and Isabel’s Car Wash.