List of Roosevelt University people

This is a list of people associated with Roosevelt University.

Current president

Members of early advisory boards included the following:^[2]^[3]^[4]

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
Shel Silverstein: musician, poet, and author
Danitra Vance: comedian (The Second City, Saturday Night Live) and actress

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
Rick Yancey: novelist^[5]

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