Your Voice Is Your Power

Nancy Rodkin Rotering ’85 MBA didn’t intend to go into politics. But in the early 2000s, Rotering and some of her Highland Park, Ill., neighbors went to City Hall to request a stop sign at a particularly dangerous intersection. She quickly noticed the lack of representation on the City Council — there were no young parents like herself, and only one woman. She decided to get involved.  

Rotering, who had been an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery focusing on health care fraud and abuse, spent several years volunteering on the city’s plan commission. Then in 2006 she was nominated to the Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership. The program, created by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and his wife, Loretta, taught Rotering how to run for office, and in 2009, she felt her time had finally come.  

Equipped with her new training, along with the skills she had learned from the Kellogg School of Management, and the support of other local moms, Rotering won a spot on the City Council. In 2011 she was elected mayor of Highland Park. 

Now in her fourth term, Rotering has prioritized fiscal responsibility, public safety and community building. She has encouraged the city to add more sidewalks so “neighbors can connect with neighbors more easily,” and has also advocated for stricter gun legislation. When Illinois enacted a 2013 law to legalize carrying concealed weapons, there was a 10-day window in which communities could choose to ban assault weapons. Highland Park was one of the few cities that passed the ban. 

Her advocacy came into focus tragically on July 4, 2022, when a shooter killed seven people and wounded 48 at Highland Park’s annual parade. “No one should have to experience that kind of fear and shock and horror,” Rotering says, recalling that tragic day. “There are people who will never go to that parade, or any parade, again in their lives. … Two-thirds of Americans change their behavior to avoid being vulnerable to a mass shooting. What does that say about our country?” 

Rotering continued to advocate for state legislation that would allow all cities in Illinois to ban assault weapons, succeeding in 2023. “We’ll keep fighting for a federal ban,” she adds. “It’s not over.” 

Rotering has a passion for teaching young people how to advocate for themselves and become active in their community. She created a program for Highland Park third-graders to participate in mock city council meetings at City Hall. “I love using this platform to help teach kids about the power of their voices,” she says. “I explain to them that it doesn’t matter what age you are, your voice has power.” She also invites high school students to join her city commissions and boards.  

Rotering teaches Women and American Political Leadership at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy (SESP). At the beginning of each quarter, she asks how many people in the class plan to run for office. “Maybe three out of 35 say yes,” she says. “But by the end, about two-thirds are pretty comfortable saying they’re planning to run.” Rotering received SESP’s Outstanding Instructor Award in 2022. 

Rotering’s ties to Northwestern run deep. “My whole family bleeds purple,” she says. Her parents, the late Henry Rodkin ’56 and Margaret Davidow Rodkin ’58, met at Northwestern and used to lull her to sleep by singing the Northwestern fight song. Rotering met her husband, Victor “Rob” Rotering ’83, ’85 MBA, in an alphabetically assigned Kellogg School of Management study group. Two of her children, her sister and several other relatives also attended Northwestern.  

Rotering credits much of her success as mayor to her Northwestern education. “I use that training more than my training from law school as mayor,” she says. “The creation of an inclusive culture, fostering partnerships and my fiscal skills, all of that came from Kellogg, and I’m forever grateful.”