Our Story...

Reflecting the ideals of its founders in 1945, Roosevelt University is a private, nonsectarian community of educators, scholars, and learners committed to academic, creative, and service excellence who value differences in personal experiences and perspectives; ask the difficult questions; and promote mutual understanding, inclusion, social consciousness, and action toward social justice.  Recognizing that difference broadens perspectives, Roosevelt University seeks and serves a diverse, promising student body from metropolitan Chicago and around the world.

The hallmarks of the Roosevelt University experience are strong student-faculty interaction and engagement with metropolitan Chicago as both a laboratory for learning and as an expression of its commitment to social justice.  The experience is created through the efforts of a strong faculty dedicated to excellence in teaching, research, and creative activity and a staff equally focused on helping students grow and achieve their educational and life goals.

Roosevelt is a metropolitan university that is an active partner in the social, economic, and cultural development of the communities it serves.  It offers a broad array of academic programs, from associate degrees to doctoral degrees, in a highly interactive environment where students can explore, discover, and develop their unique abilities and interests.

Roosevelt University prepares students to become socially conscious citizens who are leaders in their professions and their communities. With the integration of Robert Morris University Illinois, the expanded University will be nationally recognized as a catalyst for students from all walks of life to receive transformational learning experiences.

Roosevelt’s institutional culture and mission stem from the commitment to diversity, inclusion, and access on which the University was founded. The University has championed social and racial justice since its beginnings and continues in this spirit today. Our view of justice is based in a belief that fairness, honesty, integrity, equity, and critical agency should resonate throughout every institution within a civil society.  Over the years, Roosevelt University has fortified this singular dedication to democratic ideals through teaching, research, community partnerships, advocacy, and public outreach--the kind of learning that transcends the classroom. By reinforcing the importance of learning and progressive action on behalf of fairness and equity to our students and to the greater community, the University plays a significant role in shaping the world’s next generation of socially conscious and ethical citizens and leaders.

Roosevelt University is positioned on the traditional, unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. Today Chicago is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous communities in the United States. With this land acknowledgement, the Roosevelt University community honors, with gratitude, this land and the Indigenous people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. We recognize the Indigenous people who laid the foundation for the city we inhabit, as well as the diverse Indigenous nations that reside here today. We vow to do our part to right the historic wrongs of colonization, to support Indigenous communities’ struggles for self-determination, and to be better stewards of the land that we inhabit.