Carleton College - Notable Alumni

Notable Alumni

• Cordenio Severance, class of 1880, former president of the American Bar Association
• Thorstein Veblen, class of 1880, American economist and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class
• Pierce Butler, class of 1887, Supreme Court Justice from 1923 to 1939
• Ernest Lundeen, class of 1901, U.S. Representative from 1917 to 1919 and from 1933 to 1937. U.S. Senator from 1937 until his death in 1940
• Karl E. Mundt, class of 1923, U.S. Representative from 1938 to 1948 and U.S. Senator from 1948 to 1973
• Robert K. Greenleaf, class of 1926, corporate management expert, the founder of the Robert Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
• Ben C. Duniway, class of 1928, prominent American federal judge
• Warren P. Knowles, class of 1930, governor of Wisconsin from 1965 to 1971
• Ray Wendland, class of 1933, experimental petrochemist and academic
• Sheldon B. Vance, class of 1939, U.S. ambassador to Zaire
• Melvin R. Laird, class of 1942, President Nixon's Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973
• Anthony Downs, class of 1952, author of An Economic Theory of Democracy
• Hal Higdon, class of 1953, runner and writer
• Eleanor Kinnaird, class of 1953, North Carolina State Senator
• 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
• Michael Gartner, class of 1960, journalist
• Jack Barnes, class of 1961, the leader of the Socialist Workers Party (USA)
• Joyce Hughes, class of 1961, first Black female tenure track law professor at a majority white law school. Currently professor of law at Northwestern University
• Parker Palmer, class of 1961, author
• Garrick Utley, class of 1961, journalist, former host of Meet the Press
• Walter Alvarez, class of 1962, geologist credited with the theory that an asteroid impact was the likely cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event
• John A. Gale, class of 1962, Secretary of State of Nebraska since 2000
• John Lavine, class of 1963, dean of Medill School of Journalism
• Donella Meadows, class of 1963, lead author of Limits to Growth
• Peter Tork of The Monkees (then known as Peter Thorkelson) was a student at Carleton from 1960 to 1963
• James Loewen, class of 1964, historian and author of Lies My Teacher Told Me
• Peter Schjeldahl, class of 1965, art critic for The New Yorker
• Susan Golding, class of 1966, two-term mayor of San Diego
• Barrie M. Osborne, class of 1966, producer of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy
• Mary-Claire King, class of 1967, human geneticist
• Rush D. Holt, Jr., class of 1970, U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th congressional district since 1999
• Kai Bird, class of 1973, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer
• Karen Tei Yamashita, class of 1973, novelist
• Patricia Collins Wrede, class of 1974, fantasy writer
• Kirbyjon Caldwell, class of 1975, pastor of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, and a spiritual advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
• Pamela Dean, class of 1975, fantasy writer
• 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
• Jacob Lew, class of 1976, 25th and current White House Chief of Staff. Transferred to Harvard College after his freshman year
• Lincoln Child. class of 1979, writer of techno-thrillers
• Jack El-Hai, class of 1979, writer and journalist
• Jane Hamilton, class of 1979, novelist and winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
• Piotr Gajewski, class of 1981 founder, director and artistic director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra
• Brian Freeman, class of 1984, suspense fiction author
• John F. Harris, class of 1985, Editor-in chief of The Politico
• Grace Llewellyn, class of 1986, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook
• T.J. Stiles, class of 1986, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction
• William G. Moseley, class of 1987, writer and professor of geography
• Stephen Six, class of 1988, Kansas Attorney General
• Jonathan Capehart, class of 1989, journalist, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
• Clara Jeffery, class of 1989, Editor of Mother Jones magazine
• Jay Rubenstein, class of 1989, historian, recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship
• Christopher Kratt, class of 1992, TV and film producer and host
• Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, class of 1992, James Beard Award-winning food writer
• Peter Gwinn, class of 1993, writer for The Colbert Report
• Paul Tewes, class of 1993, political consultant
• Laura Veirs, class of 1997, singer-songwriter
• Masanori Mark Christianson, class of 1998, musician/art director
• Tom Nelson, class of 1998, former Wisconsin State Representative and Assembly Majority Leader
• Anthony Myint, class of 1999, Restaurateur, Founder of Mission Street Food, Mission Chinese Food and Commonwealth in San Francisco. Author of the book Mission Street Food