The College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has begun a search to fill the John Alexander Chair in Large Animal Reproduction. The Chair, the College’s first University Chair, was created in 2001 to honor John Alexander, a member of the Professional Veterinary Medical Class of 2000, following his death in 1999 from a skiing accident. The successful candidate for the Chair will be on the faculty as a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences or Clinical Sciences, as well as lead the Equine Reproduction Laboratory.
Final funding for the Chair fell into place in August when John’s uncle, Duncan Alexander, made an additional gift in honor of his nephew. It was a desire to remember John in a positive way that led his family to create the Chair.
“My brothers and I wanted to do something that would be a fitting tribute to John, and we were fortunate enough to be able to create the first University Chair in the College,” said Duncan Alexander, who is John’s uncle. He and his bothers Tom and John Sr., who is John’s father, created the Chair with a joint contribution of $1.5 million. Duncan Alexander completed funding of the Chair last month with an additional gift of $250,000.
John Alexander was born and raised in Geneva, Illinois, and attended Taft School in Connecticut. Partially because of his love of the outdoors, and skiing and fishing, John moved to Colorado and attended the University of Colorado, graduating in 1994. While at CU, John made up his mind to pursue his interest in equine medicine and began his veterinary medical training at Colorado State University.
With the John Alexander Chair in Large Animal Reproduction now fully funded, John Alexander leaves two legacies that will fulfill for others the dreams that John and his family had for himself. The other legacy is the John Alexander Memorial Scholarship, established by John’s classmates after his death. Both the scholarship and the Chair will enable students and faculty interested in large animal reproduction to pursue careers and studies that John himself would have liked.
