Roland R. Renne (December 12, 1905 – August 30, 1989) was an American agricultural economics professor who served as President of Montana State College from 1943 to 1964.

[1] With qualifying veterans returning to college at the end of the WW II, Renne provided active leadership to make the necessary changes on campus to accommodate those men and women who used the G.I.

[1] To accommodate student and new faculty housing, Renne found prefab war-surplus wooden frame building, quonset huts, barracks, and over 100 small trailers.

[1] Then he went to the state capitol, Helena, Montana, and worked with the legislature to use some of the $4.5 million war surplus monies to fund a new brick library, update older buildings, and upgrade the physical plant.

[4] Materials relating to Renne's unsuccessful 1964 gubernatorial campaign are held at Montana State University Archives and Special Collections.

[5] Renne was named as one of Montana State's most important presidents in 2011, in an interview with three MSU historians--Jeffrey Safford, Pierce Mullen, and Robert Rydell—in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

[6] From 1950 to 1951 Renne was the president of the Water Resources Policy Commission and in 1951 to 1953 he acted as chief of the Mutual Security Agency's Special Technological and Economic Mission to the Philippines.

In 1960, Renne became a consultant regarding land development for the U.S. Operations Mission to Ethiopia, and in 1961 he became a member of the National Advisory Council for Health Research Facilities, HEW.

He defeated Mike Kuchera in the Democratic primary, and advanced to the general election, where he ran against incumbent Governor Tim M.

[10] Babcock was running for re-election following his ascension to the Governorship in 1962 when the previous Governor, Donald Grant Nutter, died in a plane crash.