Alumni Profile: Alexa Authorlee (B ’22)

As a Tulane undergraduate student, Alexa Authorlee (B ’22) was known for her commitment to student leadership and finding ways to build community. As a distinguished alumna, she is excited to extend her passion for community engagement to the upcoming Black Alumni Weekend.

Tulane’s Black Alumni Weekend will take place from February 22 to 24, 2024, and will celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of the university’s Black alumni and students.

Authorlee is enthusiastic about the event and encourages widespread attendance. “No matter your age or where you are in life, this is a unique opportunity to better understand yourself and those around you — to delve deeper into opportunities for networking and for inspiration.”

She will speak on a panel on Saturday for past and present student leaders.

Being a student leader was an important part of Authorlee’s life at Tulane. A finance major and legal studies in business minor, Authorlee founded the Alliance of Black Business Students after recognizing the overwhelming isolation Black students may feel when first walking into the business school: “You are in a giant space filled with people but it can feel very alone at the same time … I wanted to make a space for myself and people like me so that we can have a sense of community.”

“This is a unique opportunity to better understand yourself and those around you — to delve deeper into opportunities for networking and for inspiration.” — Alexa Authorlee (B ’22), speaking about Black Alumni Weekend

After the success of the Alliance of Black Business Students, Authorlee played a pivotal role in establishing the Black Queer Collective, a group dedicated to supporting Black students who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Leading such an initiative within a smaller segment of an already marginalized community presented unique hurdles for Authorlee. She encountered skepticism about the necessity of the group, given the existence of a broader organization for people of color who identify as queer. She states she was asked why such a space was needed specifically for Black students.

“I think receiving those questions allowed me to understand that if people are not a part of a community or do not have a lived experience similar to that community, they often are not able to understand what it’s like walking through a world where you feel like you never see yourself represented.”

Authorlee notes that the supportive environment found within the Black Queer Collective helped members navigate difficult personal experiences, such as coming out to their parents. “It was necessary to know that there were other people going through the same thing you were going through,” she says.

Also, Authorlee held the position of treasurer for both the Black Student Union and the Undergraduate Student Government. She further contributed as an ambassador to the Tulane Center for Intercultural Life and participated in the Newcomb Institute’s Town Mom Program. During her junior year she was honored to receive the Daniel P. Nadler Crest Award, and her remarkable contributions were recognized during her senior year by the Newcomb Institute with the 2022 Dorothy Young Memorial Award & the Class of 1909 Prize to the Outstanding Senior, and by the A. B. Freeman School of Business with the Dean’s Service Award, and by New Student & Leadership Programs with the Leadership Medallion and Gary Lawton Fretwell Crest Award. Post graduation, the Newcomb Institute invited Alexa back to New Orleans to be honored as part of the Newcomb 30 Under 30.

In addition to being a student leader at Tulane, Authorlee always juggled between two to four jobs, such as being a resident advisor, serving as a tutor and a TIDES Peer Mentor, and working at the Newcomb Children’s Center. Looking back at her experience at Tulane, Authorlee candidly shares the challenges she faced, from the academic pressures to balancing multiple roles. “I was tired a lot. I cried about tests and classes and friendships.”

With the perspective of time, Authorlee says she’s grateful that her hard work positively impacted the students that are following in her footsteps at Tulane. “Being able to see other students benefit from what caused me so much grief is amazing — because it meant something. I did it for a reason.”

After graduating from Tulane, Authorlee moved back to her hometown of Houston and embarked on a career as a senior consulting analyst at Accenture. Almost immediately, she became an active member of the Tulane Club of Houston. She quickly ascended to a leadership position on the board, where she now co-chairs the philanthropy committee, demonstrating that same commitment to community engagement that she exhibited at Tulane.

Authorlee is particularly excited about Black Alumni Weekend as an opportunity to reinforce community bonds. She praises the Office of Alumni Relations for crafting meaningful experiences for alumni affinity groups, opportunities she sees that are missing at some other universities. She highlights the significance of these efforts, saying, “Once you graduate, all of those buckets of your sexual orientation, your race, your ethnicity, all those aspects of you are kind of washed away and it feels like all you are is, ‘alumni,’ so being able to experience curated events for Black alumni will surely be a beautiful opportunity.”

For more information about Black Alumni Weekend, visit the website.