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 what is now the Keck School.

When Alexander first joined the faculty in 1968, there was only one African American and one Latino student enrolled in USC’s medical school. She made it her mission to increase the number of underrepresented students and to help provide them with the support and mentorship they needed to ensure they graduated.

As the inaugural assistant dean of diversity and inclusion, Alexander led the medical school’s diversity initiatives from 1969 to 2019. A one-woman team at the start, Alexander passionately strove to develop a diverse health care workforce. By recruiting, mentoring, and supporting hundreds of students from underrepresented communities, she advanced structural change and modeled for the Keck School how to build and support an inclusive campus.

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