Newest trustee has strong ties to Chicago and to the U of C

At its June meeting, the University Board of Trustees elected John W. Rogers Jr., U-High'76, as the U of C's newest trustee. He is the founder of Chicago's Ariel Capital Management Inc., an institutional money-management firm specializing in equities. Since its 1983 founding, the firm-which also serves as the investment adviser, administrator, and distributor of Ariel Mutual Funds-has grown from two to 37 employees, with approximately $3.5 billion in assets.

His father, John W. Rogers, JD'48, a Tuskegee airman who now presides as a Cook County Circuit Court judge, got his son interested in investing by buying him stocks at every birthday and Christmas. His late mother, Jewel S. Lafontant-Mankarious, JD'46, was a U. S. deputy solicitor general and special counsel for the city of Chicago.

Rogers received his B.A. in economics from Princeton, where he captained the varsity basketball team, in 1980. A former member of the Princeton University board of trustees, at the U of C he serves on both the Council on the Graduate School of Business and the Visiting Committee to the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.

Rogers also sits on the boards of Aon Corporation, Bank One Corporation, Burrell Communications Group, GATX Corporation, Unicom, and Commonwealth Edison. He is a director of the Chicago Urban League, a trustee of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, a board member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a director of Family Focus Inc.