List of Denison University people
Since Denison University in Granville, Ohio, was founded in 1831, there have been many individuals associated with Denison who are worthy of note including presidents of the university and alumni who have gone on to work in academia, business, arts and entertainment, government, literature, religion, science, and sports. In total, Denison has about 37,000 living alumni throughout the world.
Notable alumni include actors Steve Carell, Hal Holbrook, and Jennifer Garner; SNL comedian Alex Moffat; entertainer John Davidson; Hall of Fame college football coach Woody Hayes; ESPN president George Bodenheimer; Turner Broadcasting System Senior Vice President James Anderson; drag queen and LGBT activist Nina West, former member of Turkish Parliament and current consultant to The Coca-Cola Company Mehmet Cem Kozluformer; United States Senator Richard Lugar; Indy car racer Bobby Rahal; playwright Jeffrey Hatcher; artist Ned Bittinger; author Pam Houston, James Frey; former Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner; American criminologist and father of "evidence-based policing" Lawrence Sherman; former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro; former Princeton University President William Bowen; folklorist, oral historian, author, and podcast host Douglas A. Boyd; professor of religion at Goucher College and theologian at the Washington National Cathedral Kelly Brown Douglas; Randolph Marshall Hollerith, Dean of the Washington National Cathedral; and George Stibitz, one of the fathers of modern digital computing.
Presidents of Denison University
The following persons have led Denison University as president since its founding in 1831:| No. | Image | President | Term start | Term end |
| 1 | John Pratt | 1831 | 1837 | |
| 2 | Jonathan Going | 1837 | 1844 | |
| 3 | Silas Bailey | 1846 | 1852 | |
| 4 | Jeremiah Hall | 1853 | 1863 | |
| 5 | Samson Talbot | 1863 | 1873 | |
| 6 | Elisha Andrews | 1875 | 1879 | |
| 7 | Alfred Owen | 1879 | 1886 | |
| 8 | Galusha Anderson | 1887 | 1889 | |
| 9 | Daniel B. Purinton | 1890 | 1901 | |
| 10 | Emory W. Hunt | 1901 | 1912 | |
| 11 | Clark W. Chamberlain | 1913 | 1927 | |
| 12 | Avery A. Shaw | 1927 | 1940 | |
| 13 | Kenneth I. Brown | 1940 | 1950 | |
| 14 | A. Blair Knapp | 1951 | 1968 | |
| 15 | Joel P. Smith | 1969 | 1976 | |
| 16 | Robert C. Good | 1976 | 1984 | |
| 17 | Andrew G. De Rocco | 1984 | 1988 | |
| 18 | Michele Tolela Myers | 1989 | 1998 | |
| 19 | Dale T. Knobel | 1998 | 2013 | |
| 20 | Adam S. Weinberg | 2013 | Present |
Academia
- Susan Campbell Baldridge - psychologist; Provost, Middlebury College
- Cynthia Baum – clinical psychologist and academic administrator
- David H. Bayley - pioneer in policing research and former Distinguished Professor Emeritus, School of Criminal Justice, SUNY Albany
- William G. Bowen - former president of Princeton University, current president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Douglas A. Boyd - folklorist, oral historian, podcast host, and author, current director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
- Richard Brandt - professor of philosophy, Swarthmore College and University of Michigan
- David G. Brown - university administrator
- Ernest DeWitt Burton - biblical scholar
- George Cressey - geographer, author, and academic
- Frederick German Detweiler - sociologist
- George Amos Dorsey - ethnographer
- August F. Foerste - geologist, paleontologist, and science teacher
- Lottie Estelle Granger - president, Iowa State Teachers' Association
- Stephen Holmes - Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law, New York University
- John S. Lowe - professor and expert in energy law
- Roger H. Martin - 14th president of Randolph-Macon College
- Jeffrey Masten - Shakespeare and sexuality studies scholar, Northwestern University; Guggenheim fellow
- Kirtley F. Mather - geologist; professor and department chairman at Harvard University; civil libertarian and author
- Thomas Skidmore - historian and scholar specialized in Brazilian history
- Maria Tatar - John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures; Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University
- Stephen Tuttle - musicologist and former chairman of the department of music at the University of Virginia
Business
- James Anderson - head of corporate communications and marketing, WarnerMedia; interim head of communications, CNN, Worldwide
- Samuel Armacost - former president, director, and CEO of BankAmerica Corporation
- Joe Banner - President and CEO of the Cleveland Browns
- Brad Blum - former CEO of Burger King
- George Bodenheimer - Executive Chairman of ESPN former president of ESPN and ABC Sports
- John Canning Jr. - Chairman, Madison Dearborn Partners
- Mark Dalton - CEO of the Tudor Investment Corporation
- Edward Andrew Deeds - engineer, inventor and industrialist
- Michael Eisner - former chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company
- William Esrey - former chief executive of Sprint Corporation
- John V. Faraci - chairman and chief executive officer of International Paper
- Bill Giles - chairman and part owner of Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies
- Mark Haines - co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street
- Terry Jones - founder of Travelocity.com and Kayak.com
- Andrea Mutters - Chief Information Officer of McHenry Advisers
- Ralph Schlosstein - chairman emeritus of Evercore and former president and Co-founder of BlackRock
Arts and entertainment
- Ned Bittinger - portrait painter and illustrator
- Susan V. Booth - Artistic Director, Alliance Theatre, Atlanta; Artistic Director, Goodman Theatre, Chicago
- Charlie Burg - singer song writer
- Steve Carell - screen and television actor
- Roe Conn - radio personality, WLS 890AM, Chicago
- Tom Cotter - comedian
- Franklin Cover - stage, screen and television actor
- Luke Ebbin - Grammy nominated record producer, songwriter and composer
- John Davidson - stage and television actor; game show host, including Hollywood Squares
- Jennifer Garner - screen and television actress
- Kyle Gordon - comedian
- Jeffrey Hatcher - playwright and screenwriter
- Hal Holbrook - stage, screen and television actor, known for portrayal of Mark Twain
- John Jeffcoat - screenwriter and film director, known for Outsourced
- Ademir Kenović - film director and producer
- Andrew Levitt, drag queen known as Nina West
- Nancy Lynn - acrobatic pilot, killed in 2006 Culpeper Airfest crash
- Ann Magnuson - actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer
- John Malm Jr. - former manager of Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails
- Meghan McGuire - writer and comedian
- Daniel Meyer - conductor and musical director
- Alex Moffat - actor and comedian
- P-Star - rapper, actress, singer, model, director, DJ
- Hollis Resnik - singer and actress
- José Rivera - first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award
- John Schuck - screen, stage, and television actor
- Kurt Vincent, director of The Lost Arcade
- Chelsey Warner, Associate Producer - The Boys, Amazon
Government
- Richard B. Austin - judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
- Ruth Sarles Benedict - anti-war activist, researcher and journalist
- John T. Chain Jr. - retired U.S. Air Force General
- Robert Dold - U.S. Representative for
- Edmund Burke Fairfield - minister, educator, and politician, including 12th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan
- Carty Finkbeiner - former mayor of Toledo, Ohio
- Tony P. Hall - United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture and United States Representative from Ohio
- Andrew S. Hanen - judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
- Judson Harmon - 45th Governor of Ohio and 41st United States Attorney General
- Leonard D. Heaton - former Surgeon General of the United States Army
- Edgar Winters Hillyer - judge, United States District Court for the District of Nevada
- Douglas Holtz-Eakin - former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and former chief economic policy adviser to U.S. Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign
- Randy Hopper - former member of the Wisconsin State Senate
- Sue W. Kelly - former member of the United States Congress from New York
- Robert W. Levering - former United States Congressman
- Richard Lugar - United States Senator from Indiana; on the Board of Trustees
- George McConnaughey - Chairman FCC
- Kenneth E. Melson - former ATF director
- Jim Petro - former Ohio Attorney General
- Jane Pringle - Member of the Maine House of Representatives
- Lewis A. Sachs - former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
- A. W. Sheldon - Associate Justice, Arizona Territorial Supreme Court
- Erastus B. Tyler - Union Army general in the American Civil War
- H. Clay Van Voorhis - former US Congressman
- Ed Weber - former US Congressman
- Yu Tsune-chi - Chinese Ambassador to Italy and Spain, United Nations delegate who took part in the San Francisco Conference
- Allen Zollars - Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court
Literature
- James Clear - author and speaker about habits
- James Frey - screenwriter and author; A Million Little Pieces, featured by Oprah's Book Club
- Michael Glaser - Poet Laureate of Maryland
- Maggie Ann Glover - author, poet
- Lauren Shakely - poet, editor, and publisher
- Pam Houston - author, speaker, teacher
Religion
- Roger Ames - American Anglican bishop
- Edgar J. Goodspeed - liberal theologian
- Randolph Hollerith - Dean of Washington National Cathedral
- James Madison Pendleton - 19th-century Baptist preacher, educator and theologian
Science
- Homer Burton Adkins - organic chemist
- John Berton - computer graphics animator and visual effects supervisor
- Richard B. Brandt - philosopher
- William Ernest Castle - early American geneticist
- William E. Forsythe - physicist
- George Stibitz - scientist, early pioneer of computer with Bell Labs
Sports
- Dan Daub - Major League Baseball player, 1892–1897
- Woody Hayes - football coach of Ohio State, 1951–1978
- Ken Meyer - former head coach of the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers
- Johnny O'Connell - professional sports car racer
- Bobby Rahal - Indianapolis 500 champion
- John Robic - assistant men's basketball coach at the University of Kentucky
- Nate Schmidt - assistant men's basketball coach at Iowa State University