List of Roosevelt University people

This is a list of people associated with Roosevelt University.

Current president

 * Ali Malekzadehh

Past presidents

 * Ted Gross
 * Charles "Chuck" R. Middleton: the last president
 * Edward J. Sparling: the first president
 * Rolf A. Weil

Advisory boards
Members of early advisory boards included the following:


 * Marian Anderson
 * Pearl Buck
 * Ralph Bunche
 * Albert Einstein
 * Marshall Field
 * Thomas Mann
 * Gunnar Myrdal
 * Eleanor Roosevelt
 * Albert Schweitzer

Arts and entertainment

 * Tony Alcantar: actor
 * Anthony Braxton: musician and composer
 * Merle Dandridge: Broadway actress and singer
 * Eddie Harris: jazz musician, saxophonist
 * Ramsey Lewis: jazz musician, host of Legends of Jazz and The Ramsey Lewis Morning Show, WNUA radio
 * Mary Ann Pollar: concert promoter, activist
 * Kate Quigley: comedian
 * Courtney Reed: Broadway actress and singer
 * Danitra Vance: comedian (The Second City, Saturday Night Live) and actress

Literature, news, and academia

 * Ira Berkow: author and sportswriter, The New York Times
 * Susan Carlson: news anchor
 * Parvesh Cheena: actor
 * Eckhard Gerdes: novelist
 * Charles V. Hamilton: political science professor and co-author of Black Power
 * Howard Johnson: former chairman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * Christopher Robert Reed: historian known for his expertise on the African American experience in 20th-century Chicago
 * Martha M. Vertreace-Doody: poet, author, and teacher

Military

 * Jacques Paul Klein: USAF major general

Politics

 * Melissa Bean (BA): U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district, 2005–2011
 * Leonard F. Becker: Illinois state senator
 * Jesse Brown: United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 1993–97
 * Carla Hayden: Librarian of Congress and former American Library Association president
 * Douglas Huff: Illinois politician
 * Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein ('63, '71, Hon. Dr. 2005): Senior Foreign Service Officer; Under-Secretary-General of the UN; special representative of the Secretary-General and Coordinator of United Nations Operations in Croatia (UNTAES), Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMBIH), and Liberia (UNMIL)
 * Mort Kondracke: political commentator and journalist, author of Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease
 * Ronnie Lewis, former mayor of Dolton, Illinois
 * Blanche Manning: U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Illinois
 * LeRoy Martin: Chief of Police for the State of Illinois, Central Management Services
 * Mel Reynolds: politician and Congressman, Illinois 2nd 1993–95
 * Fred Rice, Jr., Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department
 * Bobby Rush (BGS): politician and Congressman, Illinois 1st since 1993
 * Harold Washington (BA): lawyer, 51st Mayor of Chicago (first African American to hold the title), former state representative and state senator

Others

 * Dankmar Adler: architect of the auditorium building
 * Sheldon Lavin (born 1932), billionaire owner, CEO and chairman of OSI Group
 * Louis Sullivan: architect of the auditorium building
 * Florenz Ziegfeld: founder of Chicago Musical College

Notable faculty:
 * Mojisola Adeyeye: Director General of NAFDAC, Nigeria; founding Chair of Biopharmaceutical Sciences
 * Rose Hum Lee: first woman and first Chinese American to head a US university sociology department, appointed 1956