04/08/2024
Althea Alexander was truly a giant because of her unwavering commitment and passion to all of the students who attended USC’s Health Professional Preparation program. She inspired us to never stop working towards our goal of becoming doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and teachers.
We must continue your work in inspiring the future generations of health professionals to never give up on their dreams. You taught me that my hard work would give me delayed gratification, but that it would be completely worth it, and it sure has been!
You will be truly missed Althea.
The Keck School of Medicine of USC community mourns the July 17 passing of Althea Alexander, MD, a long-time member of the USC faculty and the inaugural assistant dean of diversity and inclusion. Over the span of her career, Althea and her late husband Fredric’s advocacy enabled more than 800 students from traditionally underrepresented groups in medicine to graduate from the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
“Althea Alexander played a pivotal role in advancing racial and gender equity in health care and the sciences at the Keck School, in fact, across our country,” said Joyce Richey, a faculty member in the department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Althea’s successor as the current associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the Keck School. “Simply put, she was a living giant, and we are truly indebted for her tremendous contributions in bridging the gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine.”
In lieu of flowers, the Alexander family invites all those Althea helped to continue her legacy of uplifting tomorrow’s health care leaders by contributing to the Althea and Frederic Alexander Student Support Fund at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. https://bit.ly/3AfjnzN