Davidson Selects Mideastern Specialist to Direct International Studies

Chris Alexander

Christopher Alexander, who has just been appointed to direct Davidson College’s international studies program, says growing up in a religious family led him naturally to become a scholar of the Islamic world.

“Spending so much time in church, places like Jerusalem, Damascus, and Tyre were familiar names to me,” he explained. “As I grew up in the 1970s and they started showing up in newspaper headlines, I was attracted to learn more about them. People were fighting and dying over land, faith, and identity there, which touched me as a Southerner in ways that political issues such as the Cold War never did.”

A native of Chattanooga, Alexander will begin his job as the John and Ruth McGee Director of the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science on July 1. Alexander attended the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and then pursued graduate studies at Duke University. He was looking for a dissertation topic at about the time of the Gulf War, which ruled out his hope to study in Iraq or Syria. He therefore opted to study the labor movement in Tunisia, a U.S. ally struggling to decentralize its government-controlled economy and avoid the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. He received his Ph.D. in 1996 and currently is working on a book that will be published next year as Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern Maghreb.

Alexander will bring that specific expertise to bear on a Davidson program designed to increase understanding of international issues throughout the community.

Clark Ross, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty, said, “I think Chris Alexander will be a superb director. He comes with an absolute commitment to a global undergraduate education, and is very student oriented. Seeing how our students gravitated to him on his recent visit was very heartening. I believe he is the ideal person to interact with the many constituencies—students, faculty, alumni, and community—that have an interest in our Dean Rusk Program.”

Davidson launched its program in 1985, naming it for 1931 graduate Dean Rusk, the U.S. Secretary of State in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The directorship of the program has recently been endowed by 1943 graduate John F. McGee, and the John F. and Ruth B. McGee Foundation.

The Rusk Program serves as the cornerstone for efforts to give each Davidson student an informed awareness of the whole planet, and direct knowledge of at least one area abroad. The program sponsors speakers and events both on campus and off, and distributes about $80,000 each year in overseas travel grants to students and faculty.

Alexander acknowledges that the Middle East is a “hot topic,” but insists that he won’t let his personal interest in that region overshadow the Rusk Program’s worldwide reach. “As much as I want the Dean Rusk Program to help students learn more about what’s behind the headlines, I don’t want it to be purely reactive to the press,” he said. “As educators we need to develop a vision that introduces students to all sorts of people and places and events that enrich their lives, and help them understand more about themselves.”

Alexander said the program’s college-wide mission attracted him to apply for the position after four years’ service as a political science professor and associate director of international studies at Texas A&M University. Davidson offers an academic concentration in international studies, dispersing the commitment to increase international awareness throughout the curriculum rather than concentrating it in one department. This also creates a synthesis between what goes on in class and the efforts of the Rusk Program. Alexander said, “We can rely in part on what happens in the classroom to pique student awareness about parts of the world, then we reinforce it by breathing real life into what professors are talking about.”

Alexander gets to know international students Hannah Fuhr of Germany and Roshan Paul of India.

He will receive help from two advisory committees in directing the program. The program’s benefactor, John McGee, chairs an advisory committee of alumni and other interested friends of the college. There is also a student advisory committee and a faculty advisory committee. Alexander said there is a consensus that the program should strive to interest students across the curriculum. “I want music students to feel they have as much interest in the Dean Rusk Program as do the political science majors,” he said. “We should bring in writers, artists, and musicians as well as economists and politicians.”

His mandate also includes continued outreach to the Charlotte community through the Dean Rusk Corporate Affiliates Program, and intensifying the Dean Rusk Program's contacts with alumni outside of the Charlotte area. He looks forward to getting to know the approximately 100 Davidson students enrolled from outside the country, and working with them to inform the community about their home countries.

He hopes to develop the college’s extensive internship and service learning opportunities for students who go abroad. “If you want an international career these days, it’s not enough to just be able to say you studied abroad,” he said. “There are plenty of students who do that. Employers these days want to know what sort of skills and experiences you developed abroad that will be useful to the work of their companies or organizations.”

He wants to expand the number of countries abroad where Davidson students study, and hopes to capitalize on an ongoing agricultural study exchange program between Texas A&M and Tunisia to allow Davidson students to study in that country.

He is also eager to be involved in fund raising for the Rusk Program to bolster the resources for travel grants and outside speakers.
Alexander expects to spend the six weeks before fall semester working on three areas. He wants to learn college budgeting procedures and the regulations regarding international study, meet people in the community who are interested in international affairs, and introduce himself to faculty and find out about their international interests.

He will teach at least one course per year in the political science curriculum.

Alexander is fluent in French and Arabic. He has delivered numerous papers about political reform in Tunisia, the Algerian labor movement, and Islamic movements at professional conferences, and published several articles on labor issues in refereed journals. He received two faculty appreciation awards at Texas A&M, and was selected as “Exemplary Professor of the Year 2000-2001” by its International Studies Society.

Alexander and his spouse, Carol Higham, were married in 1990 and have one daughter, Nell. Higham taught in the history department at Texas A&M, and will be teaching through Davidson’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in her specialties, Native American history and comparative history.

Alexander (right), met with (l-r) Interim Director Homer Sutton, Study Abroad Coordinator Carolyn Ortmayer, and Dean Rusk Program Assistant Kathie Faulkner on a recent visit.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,600 students. Since its establishment in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson is engaged in “Let Learning Be Cherished,” a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life.