Alexander C

McCormick

Alexander Cassius McCormick passed away peacefully on October 28, 2026 after a five-year battle with a rare form of brain cancer. His loving wife and best friend, Jude Ouimet, and their dog, Tigger, were by his side every day. Alex was a respected thought leader in the field of higher education and an amazing husband, son, mentor and friend.

Alex was born November 4, 1958 on the Cape to Barbara (MacKenzie) and Myron McCormick. Alex’s father, a Tony Award winning Broadway and Hollywood actor, passed away when Alex was only three years old. After that, Alex was raised by his mother at their apartment on West 67th Street in Manhattan. In the summers, they escaped to the MacKenzie family house on Cape Cod that they shared with Barbara’s siblings and their families. Barbara’s love for Alex and her constant attention to his wellbeing were matched only by Alex’s lifelong devotion to and caring for her.

After Alex graduated from The Browning School in 1976, he attended Dartmouth College, receiving his A.B. in 1980. Alex’s academic progression at Dartmouth demonstrated the breadth of his intellectual capacity; he began college as a Mathematics and Computer Science major, later switching to French, and finally graduating as a combined French/Drama major. This unusual path was also an example of a certain indecisiveness that was frequently the subject of good-natured ribbing by his friends.

After graduating, Alex worked at Dartmouth for five years, first in the College’s Office of Admissions and later as Assistant Dean of the College. In 1987, Alex moved to Northern California where he enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. After completing his coursework at Stanford, Alex worked from 1993-1998 at MPR Associates, a Bay area consulting firm focusing on educational research and policy. In 1996, Alex became Dr. McCormick, a monicker few ever heard him use.

In 1998, Alex left MPR Associates to become Senior Scholar and Director of Survey Research at the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. While at the Carnegie Foundation, he provided leadership for the development of a new system of classifying and understanding colleges and universities.

Alex’s professional career remained focused on higher education; he sought ways to make colleges and universities better places to learn and to work. Over the years, he became a highly respected scholar, nationally and internationally. He traveled across the country and around the world to share his knowledge and expertise and to learn from his professional colleagues. Every step along the way, Alex made close friends who kept in touch with him for the rest of his life.

In 2008 Alex accepted an offer from Indiana University to become Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE). NSSE is an international research program that assesses how well colleges and universities employ effective teaching methods and "best practices" shown to facilitate student learning and development. In any given year, between 300 and 600 institutions participate in NSSE. Alex held these positions until his retirement in December of 2021.

To know Alex was to experience his charm, wit, creativity, intelligence, humility, love, panache, procrastination, fastidiousness, and ability to connect with people. The glint in Alex’s eye, his

endearing and slightly devilish chuckle, his wry grin and his complete lack of any pretense were just a few of the characteristics that made Alex loveable and a great and faithful friend.

Alex was also no stranger to minor misadventures. As a young professional, he once decided that he needed to move a fallen tree on his property. He tied one end of a rope around the tree and the other around the axle of his car. He managed to move the tree a short distance, only to find out later that, shockingly, he had also damaged the car’s axle. Another time, Alex made a special trip from New York City to visit his mother on Cape Cod. The purported reason for the trip was to bring his mother a particular casserole dish from her New York apartment. After driving five hours or more in Friday evening traffic, Alex arrived, kissed his mother hello, brought his travel bag into the house and began to settle in. When his mother asked about the casserole dish, he sheepishly realized he had arrived without the primary purpose of the trip! Barbara let out a hearty laugh and assured Alex she would forever use the date 7/17 as a way to take him down a notch if he dared to get too high and mighty with her. She meant it and did just that from time to time. These stories became a source of amusement that Alex took with good humor, even if his laughter was sometimes accompanied by a warning that he might find a way to take you down a notch as well!

In 2001, Alex met Jude in Washington, DC at the first NSSE Technical Panel. He was late, as usual, and there were only two seats available. One of them was next to a cute woman with a bolo tie, and the rest is history. In 2006, Alex and Jude finally tied the knot, after years of dating and earning lots of frequent flyer miles. When he was asked to apply for the NSSE Directorship, Alex wanted to know what Jude, who had served an earlier stint in Bloomington, hadn’t liked about living there. When she responded that she had never had a single date there, he promised her that he was “taking care of that tomorrow!”

In 2022, Alex and Jude moved to Santa Fe to be near Jude’s sister, Nancy, Lily and Jacob and friends John and Diane Jennings and Lisa and Worth Steward. As with each one of Alex’s prior moves, he brought his mom along to New Mexico and cared for her until her death at the age of 101½ in 2023. Alex and Jude’s new home in the hills surrounding Santa Fe was a source of great joy for them both, in spite of Alex’s progressing illness. They spent many a morning enjoying lattes and biscotti on the portal and in the evenings enjoyed a cocktail, an Elevated IPA, or wine.

Alex was proud of his Scottish heritage on both sides and generally wore a kilt to any formal occasion, including their wedding. He was also a great lover of dogs. Always whimsical, he decided to combine these two loves by adopting a scruffy dog and naming him Haggis. Initially a holy terror, Haggis turned out to be an amazing dog who could teach the shyest shelter dog to play. Alex’s sense of humor was on display when he played with dogs; he delighted in encouraging them to chase a ball in one direction and then dropping it quietly over his shoulder instead of throwing it. He was even witty about his pet name for Jude. The term “Snookie Wookems,” which started as a parody of sappy pet names, eventually became their shorthand for a love that was deep, enduring, and so very much Alex and Jude.

Alex was a lover of music, especially anything new and a bit cutting edge. In his college years, he introduced many of his friends to punk rock and new wave music, just as the genres were beginning to sweep the country. When he and Jude started Alex’s Caring Bridge site, Alex

included one of his favorite songs with almost every update and encouraged his friends to do the same with the comments they posted. It was a kind of soundtrack of Alex’s life and an expression of his friends’ deep love and admiration of him. Typically, it was also Alex’s way of lightening everyone else’s load during a time when most people would have focused their energy and emotion on their own challenges. True to form, Alex remained witty, wise and seemingly unperturbed to the end. We will miss him dearly. We are planning benches at the Frank Ortiz dog park, if you would like to make a donation towards the purchase or a charity of your choice