Dennis J. Keller 1963
A National Merit Scholar, Dennis Keller earned his undergraduate degree in economics from Princeton in 1963. After a year playing freshman football, an injury his sophomore year at varsity camp ended Dennis's college football career.
From Princeton, Dennis went on to receive his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1968, where he was a Graduate School of Business Fellow. He then worked for the Communications Division of Motorola Inc., and the Education Group of the Bell & Howell Company. In 1973, he left Bell & Howell to co-found the Keller Graduate School of Management. In 1987, Keller Graduate School acquired the assets of DeVry, Inc., the holding company for the DeVry Institutes of Technology. Renamed DeVry Inc., the combined company completed an initial public offering in 1991. Its shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DV. Dennis served as CEO until 2004 and Chairman until his retirement in 2008. Currently, he is Director Emeritus and Senior Advisor of DeVry Inc. and DeVry University Inc.
Dennis is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the University of Chicago and Princeton University; and a Director of Nicor Inc. He is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the African Wildlife Foundation, Vice Chairman of the Chicago Zoological Society at Brookfield Zoo, and a Trustee of the Mpala Wildlife Foundation. He also serves as a Trustee of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation. Among his other philanthropic activities, Dennis and his wife, Constance Templeton Keller, endowed Princeton's Center for Innovation in Engineering Education in 2008.
A resident of Oak Brook, Illinois, Dennis and his wife have three sons and six grandchildren.