# List of Roosevelt University people

This is a list of people associated with Roosevelt University.

## Presidents
### 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

## Notable alumni
### 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
* 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