Long Island University, which over the year has helped carry on the legacies of the Roosevelts, will open The Roosevelt School this fall for students interested in careers in international relations, diplomacy, leadership and public policy.
The school will be chaired by Theodore Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt, chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Institute at LIU and a professor at the university, which has campuses in Brookville and Brooklyn.
The school will offer an undergraduate degree in International Relations & Diplomacy and a combined five-year bachelor’s and master’s of business in International Relations & Diplomacy. Students will have the option to study abroad at LIU’s Global College centers.
“I thought this was a real opportunity to help the next generation understand the problems we as a democracy face now and have always faced, and to be prepared to work … in making this a better place, ” Tweed Roosevelt said Friday. “We are focusing on finding people who are committed and interested in giving to the country in various ways.”
He expects graduates to work in the field of international relations and domestic policy. The Roosevelt School is approved for the campuses in Brookville and Brooklyn.
The school is named after the Roosevelt family and inspired by the legacies in diplomacy, conservation and social justice of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt; the 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, school officials said.
Since the turn of the century, LIU has been linked with the Roosevelt families. From 1901-10, Theodore Roosevelt worked with breakfast cereal entrepreneur C.W. Post (the namesake of LIU’s Post campus) on labor relations policies in the U.S. His son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., was among a group of citizens to write LIU’s charter.
During the 1940s, Joseph E. Davies, who resided on what is the now the LIU Post campus, served as FDR’s ambassador to Russia. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., the third son of FDR, was elected to LIU’s Board of Trustees in 1946.
“Long Island University is proud to further build upon the exceptional heritage of the Roosevelts,” LIU president Kimberly R. Cline said in a statement.
The Roosevelt School will house the Theodore Roosevelt Institute, Global Service Institute & Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling, and Analysis.
LIU has a total of about 14,600 students on its two campuses, according to 2018-19 data from the State Education Department.
