Washington College on Wednesday named a former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to be the college's 28th president.
Sheila C. Bair, 61, will take over the job as president of the small liberal arts college in Chestertown in August. She will be the first woman president of the college, which was founded in 1782.
After leaving the FDIC at the end of her term in 2011, Bair has been senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts, and chaired the Systemic Risk Council, a public-interest group of prominent former government officials and financial experts who monitor implementation of financial reforms.
"As some see challenges in liberal arts education, Washington College sees nothing but opportunities," Bair said in a statement.
Known as a one of those who warned about the damage to consumers of the subprime mortgage crisis, she served at the FDIC during the years of the crisis. Bair wrote about her work at the FDIC in "Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself," a New York Times bestseller published in September 2012.
A Kansas native, she is married and has two children.
Bair takes over from Interim President Jay Griswold, who has been there for a year since Mitchell B. Reiss stepped down to lead the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.