List of St. Olaf College people

This list of St. Olaf Alumni contains links to Wikipedia articles about notable alumni and other people connected to St. Olaf College, a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota.

Notable alumni

Composers and conductors

• Kenneth Jennings, class of 1950
• Dale Warland, class of 1954
• David Boe, class of 1958
• René Clausen, class of 1974
• Anton Armstrong, class of 1978
• Timothy Mahr, class of 1978
• Bradley Ellingboe, class of 1980
• Craig Hella Johnson, class of 1984
• Jocelyn Hagen, class of 2003

Politicians, Statesmen and Judges

• Russell A. Anderson, class of 1964, Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court
• August H. Andresen, class of 1912
• Arnie Arnesen, class of 1975, fellow of Harvard Institute of Politics and member of New Hampshire House of Representatives
• David Bly, class of 1974?, member of the Minnesota House of Representatives
• Satveer Chaudhary, class of 1991, former member of the Minnesota State legislature
• Raymond Cox, class of 1974, former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives
• Kim Elton, class of 1968, former member of the Alaska Senate
• Arlen Erdahl, class of 1953, United States Representative from Minnesota
• Joan Ericksen, class of 1977, Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
• Tom Fiebiger, class of 1978, member of the North Dakota Senate
• Mary Forsythe, class of 1922, member of Minnesota House of Representatives
• Ian C. Kelly, class of 1977
• David L. Knutson, class of 1982, Minnesota State Senator of District 37, 2003-2004
• John Marty, class of 1978
• David Minge, class of 1963
• Erik Paulsen, class of 1987, United States Representative from Minnesota
• Kristi Pursell, class of 2003, member of the Minnesota House of Representatives
• Al Quie, class of 1950
• Karl F. Rolvaag, class of 1941
• Steve Sviggum, class of 1979
• Eric C. Tostrud, class of 1987, Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
• Andrew Volstead, class of 1881, US house of representatives for Minnesota, introduced National Prohibition Act

Writers

• Robert Bly, class of 1950 (transferred out), leader of the Mythopoetic men's movement
• Kristina Halvorson, class of 1993
• Michelle Hoover, class of 1994
• Siri Hustvedt, class of 1977
• Kij Johnson, class of 1982
• Peg Kerr, class of 1982
• Sarah Lindsay, class of 1980
• Timothy Mason, class of 1972, playwright
• Emily Rapp, class of 1996
• Mark Rein-Hagen, author of Vampire: The Masquerade class of 1988
• Ole Rolvaag, class of 1905, author of Giants in the Earth

Religion

• Johan Arnd Aasgaard, class of 1898, American Lutheran church leader
• James Reeb, class of 1950, minister, pastor, and Civil Rights activist, 1927-1965
• Stuart E. Barstad, class of 1951?, Chief of Chaplains of the United States Air Force from 1985 to 1988
• David Ede, class of 1957, American scholar of Islam
• Alan M. Olson, class of 1961, philosopher, Boston University, 1974-2013

Other

• Ernest Lawrence, class of 1922, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935
• Einar Haugen, class of 1928, Harvard professor of Scandinavian and linguistics
• Edward Sövik, class of 1939, architect and later St. Olaf faculty member
• Roger Grimsby, class of 1950, television news anchor
• Willis H. Flygare, class of 1958, chemist credited with "outstanding contributions to the understanding of molecular electronic structure"
• John Enemark, class of 1962, American biochemist
• Barry Morrow, class of 1970, Oscar-winning screenwriter
• Gretchen Morgenson, class of 1976, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
• Cheryl Willman, class of 1977, cancer researcher and executive director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Programs
• David L. Rose, class of 1989, tech entrepreneur and inventor
• Margaret Sordahl, ornithologist
• Ward Sutton, class of 1989, cartoonist and illustrator, 2018 Herblock Award winner
• Dean Buntrock, founder and former chairman and CEO of Waste Management, Inc. and largest school benefactor
• Jason DeRose, class of 1997, Western Bureau Chief for National Public Radio News
• Amanda Cox, class of 2001, Editor of The Upshot section of the New York Times
• Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, class of 2009, the first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer
• Lukas Warren, icon, self proclaimed master of tempo and sneaker collector. He directs the nationally recognized varsity show choir group, “Riverside Company”, in Hastings, Minnesota.

Fictional

• Jay Gatsby, titular character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, attended for two weeks, did not graduate

Notable faculty

• Anton Armstrong, conductor of the St. Olaf Choir
• Kenneth O. Bjork, historian and educator
• F. Melius Christiansen, founder of the St. Olaf Choir
• John Ferguson, organist and composer
• Kenneth Jennings, composer and former conductor of the St. Olaf Choir
• Robert Jenson, theologian
• Chris Meidt, head football coach (2002–2007), assistant coach with Washington Redskins
• Anantanand Rambachan, Hindu scholar
• Ole Rolvaag, author
• Edward Sövik, class of 1939, architect and later St. Olaf faculty member
• Lynn Steen, mathematician
• Charles Taliaferro, philosopher