Bobby C. Alexander, PhD, conducts research and teaches in the area of sociology and sociology of religion at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is associate professor of sociology in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences. Currently he works on religion of the newest immigrants in U.S. society; his main project in this area is the contribution of their religion to change in gender roles for migrant Mexican Pentecostal women. He also is working on a collaborative project on asylum and the performance of credibility. His research has been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, CrossCurrents: Association for Religion and Intellectual Life, and the American Academy of Religion. Prof. Alexander took his PhD in religious studies at Columbia University. He holds a PhD in systematic theology awarded by Union Theological Seminary. Columbia also awarded him the MPhil, and Union Seminary the MDiv.
Prof. Alexander has made several gifts to the Yale community. Along with Yale ISM faculty, Alexander established the Richard Paul DeLong Prize in church music, which goes to graduates of ISM pursuing careers as practicing church musicians. He established the DeLong Papers at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale; the collection contains Mr. DeLong’s manuscripts of sacred music and related papers. The library also received Richard DeLong’s collection of sacred music recordings and books on music. To be donated to the Gilmore Library are recordings of Mr. DeLong’s church choirs; Richard DeLong was a church choir director and organist as well as composer of music for the church. Prof. Alexander donated the DeLong Hymnal Collection to the Yale Divinity Library. Following his earlier gift to ISM of Mr. DeLong’s harpsichord built by Richard Kingston, he recently donated Mr. DeLong’s Bösendorfer piano.