A former Saluki basketball player is establishing the single largest endowed scholarship for any Saluki Athletics program.
James Rosser combined two previously established endowments to create a single million-dollar scholarship that will be directed to a men’s basketball player who maintains a 3.0 grade-point average in the field of science, technology, engineering, or math.
The East St. Louis native came to SIU on a basketball scholarship in the late 1950's. He earned degrees in health education and microbiology.
Rosser began his career as a member of the faculty at SIU and founded the Black American Studies program in 1968. He received the Alumni Achievement Award in 1982, the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999, and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2003.
Rosser also served as president of California State University, Los Angeles; as vice and acting chancellor of the State of New Jersey Department of Higher Education and as senior associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Kansas.
