Dickinson has proudly hosted a wide range of national and international leaders at the Historic President’s House over the years. As impressive as the list is, we envision The Alumni House @ Dickinson serving as a gathering place where an equally accomplished but more diverse collection of leaders are hosted in the years to come, culled from an even wider swath of professional sectors. Can you match the names and faces?

Elected office

• Óscar Arias Sánchez, Nobel-prize winner; president of Costa Rica
• Mary Robinson, president of Ireland
• Edward G. Rendell, mayor of Philadelphia; Governor of Pennsylvania (D)
• Tom Wolfe, Governor of Pennsylvania (D)
• Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania (R); Secretary of Homeland Security
• William Scranton, Governor of Pennsylvania (R)
• Christine Todd Whitman, Governor of New Jersey (R)
• Thomas H. Kean, Governor of New Jersey (D)
• Douglas Wilder, Governor of Virginia (D)
• Jesse Ventura, professional wrestler and governor of Minnesota (Reform Party)
• Edwin Meese, US Attorney General (R)
• Paul Sarbanes, U.S. Representative and Senator (D-MD)
• Birch Bayh, U.S. Senator (D-IN)
• Paul Simon, U.S. Senator (D-IN)
• John Heinz, U.S. Senator (R-PA)
• Richard Schweiker, U.S. Senator (D-PA)
• Jacob K. Javits, U.S. Senator (D-NY)
• Bob Dole, U.S. Senator (R-KS); Republican presidential candidate
• Joseph Sestak, 3-star Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret.); U.S. Representative (D-PA)
• George Gekas (Dickinson ’52), U.S. Representative (R-PA)
• Bill Shuster (Dickinson ’83), U.S. Representative (R-PA)
• Jim Gerlack (Dickinson ’77)), U.S. Representative (R-PA)
• Kurt L. Schmoke, Mayor, Baltimore, MD (D)

Public law

• William Rehnquist, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
• Harry Blackmun, US Supreme Court Justice
• Owen J. Roberts, US Supreme Court Justice
• John E. Jones III ’77, U.S. District Judge, Middle District of PA; Chair, Board of Trustees (2017-)
• James Comey, director, FBI
• Kenneth Starr, U.S. Solicitor General, special counsel investigator of President Bill Clinton

Diplomacy

• Madeline Albright, Secretary of State
• Paul Warnke, U.S. Diplomat and arms control negotiator
• Nicholas Burns, American Ambassador (Greece) and diplomat
• Ellsworth Bunker, Ambassador (Argentina, Italy, India, Nepal and South Vietnam); lead negotiator for the Panama Canal Treaty (1978)
• Hodding Carter III, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs
• P.J. Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs

Other public service

• David H. Petraeus, Four-star General, U.S. Army (ret.);  CIA Director
• David C. Meade ’62, Two-star General, U.S. Army (ret.); Trustee Emeritus
• Jody Powell, Press Secretary to President Jimmy Carter
• Alice Rivlin, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget
• Dennis C. Blair, 4-star Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret.);  Director of National Intelligence
• Valerie Plame Wilson, CIA operative
• David Kessler, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
• Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Journalism

• Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief Correspondent
• Ted Koppel, broadcast journalist
• George F. Will, columnist for The Washington Post and Newsweek
• Kimberly Dozier, intelligence writer for the Associated Press, best-selling author
• Richard Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with the Washington Post
• David Gergen, political commentator and advisor to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton
• Daniel Schorr, Emmy-Award-winning journalist
• Brian Lamb, American journalist and the founder of C-SPAN
• Ann Woodruff Compton, ABC News White House Correspondent
• James Reston, American journals, New York Times
• John Curley (Dickinson ’60 and Chair, Board of Trustees, 1998-2008), former editor of USA Today and retired Chairman of Gannet News Service

The arts, sciences, and social sciences

• James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Ian McEwan, English author
• Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner
• Robert Frost, Pulitzer-prize-winning American poet
• Margaret Mead, American anthropologist
• Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science popularizer
• Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-selling volumes in history
• David McCullough, Pulitzer-prize-winning author and historian
• Mario Vargas Llosa, writer and Nobel Prize in literature
• Margaret Atwater, Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist
• Herta Muller, writer and Nobel Prize in Literature

Entertainment

• Antonio Bandaras, Spanish-born actor and producer
• Melanie Griffith, American film, stage, and television actress, and film producer
• Lord Richard Attenborough, English actor, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and politician
• Jack Palance, Academy Award-winning actor
• Julie Harris, American actress and 5-time Tony Award winner
• Mike Farrell, American actor (Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt, television series M*A*S*H)
• Tommy Flanagan, jazz pianist
• John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted
• Phil Capice (Dickinson ’52), television producer; executive producer of the TV show Dallas

Social activism

• Bishop Desmond Tutu, South African anti-apartheid and human rights activist
• Ralph Nader, consumer and environmental activist
• Jonathan Kozol, social and educational activist
• Mark Ruffalo, actor, director and award-winning advocate for addressing climate change and increasing renewable energy
• James Balog, author, scientist and award-winning photographer who founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) and Earth Vision Trust
• Bill McKibben, American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming
• Dr. William Sloane Coffin, peace activist
• Sam Rose (Dickinson ’58), real estate developer and co-founder with wife Julie of the Rose-Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism
• Derek Humphry, British-born American journalist and author notable as a proponent of legal assisted suicide and the right to die philosophy
• Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground

Sports

• Howard Cosell, American sportscaster, sports journalist, and author
• Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Hall-of-Fame professional basketball player, social commentator on race and religion
• Bill Bradley, Hall-of-Fame professional basketball player; U.S. Senator (D-NJ)
• Doug Flutie, professional football player (quarterback); social activist (autism)