[4] In 1893 President Grover Cleveland appointed him "Envoy Extraordinary, Minister Plenipotentiary, and Consul General to Greece, Roumania, and Servia" [sic].

[5] As ambassador to Greece, he helped in the revival of the Olympic Games, making the first cash contribution to the organizing committee, encouraging the participation of American athletes, and with his wife hosting numerous social events during the period of the games, which ran from April 6 to April 15, 1896.

During his tenure as supervisor, a new Carnegie library was built, and the University hired its first real librarian, Louis Round Wilson.

That Carnegie library built under Alexander's tenure is now Hill Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina.

[1] In 1905 Alexander was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece,[7] an honor society at the University of North Carolina that was modeled on Yale's Skull and Bones.