CSULB Welcomes President Alexander

By Anne Ambrose

Since CSULB’s new President F. King Alexander and his two young daughters moved into the Miller House president’s residence in January, he quickly embraced the university and the community.

That extends to asking students playing basketball in the campus gym if he can join them for a pickup game. “They probably think presidents don’t normally do that,” he laughed.

Alexander, the former president of Murray State University in Kentucky, is a nationally respected authority in higher education finance selected last October by the CSU board of trustees as CSULB’s sixth president.“From a perspective of somebody who has been at five public universities, from smaller institutions to larger institutions, I think we have some of the best students in the country,” Alexander said. “Our faculty are also among the best in the country, both in the teaching and in the research arena.”

Thanks to CSULB’s efforts over the years, “Here in Long Beach, the relationship we have with the community in all aspects, whether it’s city government, business and industry or the public schools, is very strong,” he said.

He also is impressed with CSULB’s alumni. “It just makes perfect sense to attach ourselves to so many good, successful alums out there who have a fondness for this university.”

Alexander would like to see more opportunities for student-campus engagement, including more campus housing. “We want this to be the main focus of their lives at this point. The student who doesn’t participate in the co-curricular environment on a college campus is one who will only get half out of college that they should.” It’s something he learned from his father, a former college president, and his mother, who pioneered University of Florida women’s intercollegiate athletics.

Life outside of campus revolves around daughters Savannah, 9, and Madison, 6. “They love California and they love Long Beach, particularly,” said Alexander, whose wife, Elizabeth, died five years ago of breast cancer. “Their transition has been much smoother than I anticipated. And it has a lot to do with the nature of Long Beach itself, which looks large and complicated, but on the inside it’s very small and personable.”

Alexander relishes the challenges of being a college president, but abides by an underlying philosophy. “I think that the most important asset that anybody can have is that we all need a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves.”

Fieldon King Alexander

• Ph.D., higher education administration, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
• M.S., educational studies and comparative education, University of Oxford, England.
• B.A., political science, St. Lawrence University, New York.
• President, Murray State University, Kentucky, 2001-2005.
• Foundation fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford.
• Faculty affiliate, Cornell University Higher Education Research Institute and University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs.
• Former coordinator, Higher Education Program and assistant professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.