List of Carleton College people

The following is a list of notable people associated with Carleton College, located in the American city of Northfield, Minnesota.

Notable alumni

Academia

• Buell G. Gallagher, class of 1925, President of Talladega College, president of City College of New York
• John Lavine, class of 1963, dean of Medill School of Journalism
• Thomas Mengler, class of 1975, President of St. Mary's University (Texas), former Dean of Law at University of St. Thomas and former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law
• William G. Moseley, class of 1987, writer and professor of geography
• Peter H. Schultz, class of 1966, Brown University geology professor; co-investigator to the NASA Science Mission Directorate spacecraft Deep Impact; awarded the Barringer Medal of the Meteoritical Society in 2004
• Stephen Thorsett, class of 1987, President of Willamette University, physicist, astronomer, former dean of UC Santa Cruz Division of Physical and Biological Sciences

Arts

• Lila Abu-Lughod, class of 1974, accomplished author, scholar and expert on the Arab world
• Kai Bird, class of 1973, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer
• Jonathan Capehart, class of 1989, journalist, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
• Lincoln Child, class of 1979, writer of techno-thrillers
• Jimmy Chin, class of 1996, photographer
• Masanori Mark Christianson, class of 1998, musician/art director
• Bob Daily, class of 1986, television producer and screenwriter
• Pamela Dean, class of 1975, fantasy writer
• Anthony Downs, class of 1952, author of An Economic Theory of Democracy
• Jack El-Hai, class of 1979, writer and journalist
• Brian Freeman, class of 1984, suspense fiction author
• Piotr Gajewski, class of 1981 founder, director and artistic director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra
• Michael Gartner, class of 1960, journalist
• Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, class of 1992, James Beard Award-winning food writer
• Peter Gwinn, class of 1993, writer for The Colbert Report
• Jane Hamilton, class of 1979, novelist and winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
• John F. Harris, class of 1985, editor-in-chief of Politico
• Hal Higdon, class of 1953, runner and writer
• Clara Jeffery, class of 1989, editor of Mother Jones magazine
• Christopher Kratt, class of 1992, TV and film producer and host
• Grace Llewellyn, class of 1986, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook
• James Loewen, class of 1964, historian and author of Lies My Teacher Told Me
• Erica Lord, class of 2001, artist
• Zach McGowan, class of 2002, actor
• Donella Meadows, class of 1963, lead author of The Limits to Growth
• Barrie M. Osborne, class of 1966, producer of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy
• Parker Palmer, class of 1961, author
• Jay Rubenstein, class of 1989, historian, recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship
• Peter Schjeldahl, class of 1965, art critic for The New Yorker
• T.J. Stiles, class of 1986, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction
• Peter Tork, of The Monkees (then known as Peter Thorkelson); was a student at Carleton from 1960 to 1963
• Garrick Utley, class of 1961, journalist, former host of Meet the Press
• Laura Veirs, class of 1997, singer-songwriter
• Patricia Collins Wrede, class of 1974, fantasy writer
• Karen Tei Yamashita, class of 1973, novelist
• Kao Kalia Yang, Hmong American writer and author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

Business

• Robert K. Greenleaf, class of 1926, corporate management expert, founder of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
• Thorstein Veblen, class of 1880, economist and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class

Politics

• Michael Armacost, class of 1958, former Under Secretary of State (Policy), former ambassador to Japan and the Philippines, president of the Brookings Institution from 1995 to 2002, and former chairman of the board of trustees
• Jack Barnes, class of 1961, the leader of the Socialist Workers Party
• Pierce Butler, class of 1887, Supreme Court Justice from 1923 to 1939
• Ben C. Duniway, class of 1928, federal judge
• John A. Gale, class of 1962, Secretary of State of Nebraska since 2000
• Susan Golding, class of 1966, two-term mayor of San Diego
• Susan Hekman, class of 1971, professor of political science and director of the graduate humanities program at the University of Texas at Arlington
• Rush D. Holt, Jr., class of 1970, U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th congressional district since 1999
• Eleanor Kinnaird, class of 1953, North Carolina State Senator
• Warren P. Knowles, class of 1930, governor of Wisconsin from 1965 to 1971
• Melvin R. Laird, class of 1942, President Nixon's Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973
• Jacob Lew, class of 1976, United States Secretary of the Treasury and 25th White House Chief of Staff; transferred to Harvard College after his freshman year
• Ernest Lundeen, class of 1901, U.S. Representative 1917-1919 and 1933-1937; U.S. Senator from 1937 until his death in 1940
• Karl E. Mundt, class of 1923, U.S. Representative 1938-1948; U.S. Senator 1948-1973
• Tom Nelson, class of 1998, former Wisconsin State Representative and Assembly Majority Leader
• Stephen Six, class of 1988, former Kansas Attorney General
• Paul Tewes, class of 1993, political consultant
• Sheldon B. Vance, class of 1939, U.S. ambassador to Zaire

Science

• Walter Alvarez, class of 1962, geologist credited with the theory that an asteroid impact was the likely cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event
• Kinsey Anderson, class of 1949, pioneer space physicist and member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Todd Golub, class of 1985, professor of pediatrics at Harvard, known for applying the tools of genomics to study cancer
• Robert Edward Gross, class of 1927, highly distinguished surgeon and one of the pioneers of cardiac surgery
• Mary-Claire King, class of 1967, human geneticist
• Eric Pianka, class of 1960, biologist, herpetologist and well-known evolutionary ecologist known as "the Lizard Man;" pioneered work on r/K selection theory
• Ray Wendland, class of 1933, experimental petrochemist and academic

Other

• Kirbyjon Caldwell, class of 1975, pastor of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, and spiritual advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
• Jane Elizabeth Hodgson, class of 1934, physician, a Founding Fellow of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, pioneer in women's reproductive health, and abortion rights advocate
• Anthony Myint, class of 1999, restaurateur, founder of Mission Street Food, Mission Chinese Food and Commonwealth in San Francisco; author of Mission Street Food
• Cordenio Severance, class of 1880, former president of the American Bar Association

Fictional

• Ben Wyatt, a likable yet neurotic government worker played by Adam Scott on the television series Parks and Recreation, is revealed to be a Carleton alumnus in a season six episode. He had previously been shown wearing a fictionalized Carleton College Intramural Champions tee-shirt.

Notable faculty

• Ian Barbour, professor emeritus, 1989–91 Gifford lecturer on religion and science, and winner of the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion
• H. Scott Bierman, professor of economics, department chair, academic dean, game theory expert, President of Beloit College 2009–present
• David Bryn-Jones, biographer of U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg; taught history, economics, and international relations at Carleton from 1920 to 1951
• John Bates Clark, economist; professor at Carleton, and taught Thorstein Veblen
• Frank Daniel, Czech born writer, producer, director, and teacher; developer of the sequence paradigm of screenwriting
• Laurence McKinley Gould, second-in-command to Richard E. Byrd on his first landmark expedition to Antarctica, professor of geology at Carleton and later College President 1945-1962
• Roy Grow, former Kellogg Professor of International Relations and director of International Relations; former military interpreter and analyst in Asia; before his death in 2013, he was often heard on programs such as Minnesota Public Radio's Midday
• Ian Holbourn, writer and Laird of Foula; instrumental in creating the art department
• Gao Hong, composer and performer
• Burton Levin, former United States Consul General to Hong Kong and US Ambassador to Burma 1987-1990, currently the SIT Investment Visiting Professor of Asian Policy
• Gregory Blake Smith, novelist and short story writer, Lloyd P. Johnson Norwest Professor of English and the Liberal Arts
• Kimberly K. Smith, Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies
• Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1991 until his death in 2002; professor of political science at Carleton from 1969 to 1990
• Reed Whittemore, poet, taught English at Carleton

Presidents of the College

1. James Woodward Strong, 1870–1903
2. William Henry Sallmon, 1903–1908
3. Donald Cowling, 1909–1945
4. Laurence McKinley Gould, 1945–1962
5. John Nason, 1962–1970
6. Howard R. Swearer, 1970–1977
7. Robert Edwards, 1977–1986
8. David H. Porter, 1986–1987
9. Stephen R. Lewis Jr., 1987–2002
10. Robert A. Oden Jr., 2002–2010 (retired June 30, 2010)
11. Steven G. Poskanzer, 2010–present