John David Alexander was Pomona College’s seventh president and second longest tenured (to date), serving from 1969 until 1991. Over his 22 years as president, Pomona’s endowment increased from $24 million to $296 million; the faculty grew from 130 to 156; and new construction added 15 major buildings to the campus. The geographic and ethnic diversity of the student body increased dramatically as the College made the transition from a primarily regional institution to a national liberal arts college with a majority of its students from outside California. The year after his retirement, the College named its new administration building The David Alexander Hall of Administration in his honor.

Born in 1932 in Springfield, Tennessee, David Alexander attended Southwestern at Memphis College (now Rhodes College) where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors in Greek in 1953. A classicist with a deep interest in theological history, Alexander went on to study at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where he was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar in 1954. As a Rhodes Scholar, Alexander was able to attend Oxford University and earned a D.Phil. in Theology from Oxford’s Christ Church College in 1957. After earning his doctorate, Alexander taught for eight years at the San Francisco Theological Seminary before becoming president of his alma mater Southwestern at Memphis College in 1965. Four years later, Dr. Alexander succeeded E. Wilson Lyon as Pomona College president and was appointed on October 18, 1969, which fell on both his 37th birthday and the celebration of the 82nd anniversary of the College.

From 1981 to 1998, Dr. Alexander served as American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, where oversaw the annual selection of 32 Americans chosen to study at Oxford. Additionally, he was the author of “The American Scholarships” in The History of the Rhodes Trust (OUP, 2001) and served as editor of the American Oxonian, magazine of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars. In 1998, David Alexander was decorated Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was named a Distinguished Friend of Oxford University in 2000.

Dr. Alexander served on several boards and was trustee of many organizations, both during and following his tenure as Pomona College president. He was a trustee of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) from 1970 to 2002, a trustee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation from 1978 to 1999, and served on the Board of Overseers of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens from 1991 to 2010. He was also a director of KCET, the Seaver Institute, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Early in his tenure at Pomona, Dr. Alexander served as a trustee of the American Council on Education and later on of the Fellows of the Society of Phi Beta Kappa. From 2004, he served as the President of the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery London and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. David Alexander passed away following a battle with cancer at age 77 on July 25, 2010, at his home in Claremont.