Dr. Alexander took his undergraduate degree at the College of Medical Evangelists (now Loma Linda University) in 1950. He later earned master's degrees at Andrews University and at Edinburgh University; he then completed his doctorate at Michigan State University in 1962. After his pastoral internship in the early 1950s, he returned to Loma Linda as an associate professor of practical theology between 1954 and 1963. For the next 10 years he served briefly as a professor and chair of the Religion Department at Andrews University, and then as professor of pastoral care and theology at the Andrews University Theological Seminary.