“The challenge is making sure you can get back and prioritize the most important parts of those days and make sure that you’re still touching bases in areas where you need to touch base,” he says. “You’re also putting a great deal of time into things that need time and energy.”

Alexander’s daily activities may be split between what he terms “three major fronts.” One is the campus world, which encompasses student interactions, faculty and staff interactions, and alumni interactions. The latter is seen as being of particular importance. Maps on Alexander’s office wall identify some 235,000 alumni spread all over the country, a primary source of support for the university, both in terms of money and goodwill.

While he could easily spend all year doing just that aspect of his job, the university president doesn’t have that luxury. Another focus is Sacramento, where he stays on top of developments at the state level. The university is more than 40 percent reliant on support from the state of California, which means Alexander needs to enlist the support of legislators, who hold the purse strings. This is particularly important at the moment, since the state’s current budget fight is expected to last through August or September.

The third front is Washington, and there are two fronts there. One is earmarks for the university, particularly grant proposals that are generated through Alexander’s office. While these grants primarily benefit CSULB, Alexander takes a wider vision. “I spend a lot of time in shaping or trying to reshape federal higher-education policies that help, not just our students, but…students and public institutions nationwide that serve students like ours,” he says. “We are helping to write legislation that has been picked up and testifying at chairing committees to help Congress understand who does a good job and who doesn’t.”

None of this whirlwind of activity could be possible without strong support. Since he came to CSULB from Kentucky’s Murray State University, Alexander’s had to rebuild the management team of the university because of retirements and those leaving for other positions. “We’ve been fortunate to find some top-notch people,” he says. “I tell them my job is not to screw them up, stay out of their way, and give them an environment where they can succeed with our students.”

Succeeding with the students is something that is important to Alexander. He takes time to interact with them on campus, playing pick-up basketball once or twice a week when he can. Not only is it good exercise, one of two “stress relievers” he allows himself, but it’s also a good way to get to know the students. “I learn more from our students when I’m outside my office than I ever do when I’m in my office,” he admits. “I’ve always had a lot of success being able to interact with students in their environments, which is how I like to do it.”

He also interacts with younger people, most notably his pre-teen children—his other “stress reliever.” Widowed by the time he got to Murray State in 2001, Alexander has since remarried. He and his wife, Shenette, make sure his children get plenty of attention. This means a balancing act between his family and his career, particularly when it comes to the university’s evening and weekend activities, including sporting events. There are some games he simply has to sacrifice. “The last thing I want is to feel guilty when I’m at one of our games because I’m not with the kids and they’re expecting me to do something,” he says.

A national expert in domestic and international higher-education finance and public policy, Alexander still finds time to publish in his area of expertise. His research has appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor.

His daily activities work together, always with the goal of doing what is best for CSULB and universities like it nationwide. He takes the same message to Washington as he does to Sacramento, a vision of the university’s role based on hard numbers. The university graduates 8,200 students a year, more than Vanderbilt, Princeton, and Dartmouth combined. “Our costs are half the national public university average,” Alexander says. “We’re the new model for what universities should be doing in the future.”