Clif Stratton

Clif Stratton, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Vice Chancellor, Academic Engagement
clif.stratton@wsu.edu
509-335-2798

Dr. Clif Stratton was named inaugural Vice Chancellor for Academic Engagement for WSU Pullman in 2023. In this role, he works to support undergraduate teaching and learning through an equity lens. His goal is to ensure that all Pullman undergraduates – no matter their background and prior experience with higher education – have access to high-impact practices, are well-positioned to develop a meaningful sense of belonging to and engagement with WSU’s academic enterprise, and graduate with confidence and a sense of purpose for life beyond college.

An active collaborator, Stratton’s approach is to foster connections across programs, colleges, and campuses. Stratton is currently involved in two new initiatives: to grow academic support for first-generation students – a partnership with Student Affairs – and to create a comprehensive plan, in partnership with the Academic Success and Career Center, to ensure that all undergraduates have access to and engagement with high-quality career readiness opportunities throughout their time on campus.

Prior to joining the Chancellor’s leadership team, Stratton served for four years as director of University Common Requirements, WSU’s general education program. In that role, he led efforts to create an Equity and Justice course designation for the program and collaborated with colleagues in the Carson College of Business and the Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership to create the Core to Career faculty fellowship program that supports faculty integration of career readiness skills in general education courses.

Stratton continues to teach in his home department and offers courses in the intertwined histories of race, colonialism, immigration, and sport in both US and global contexts. Stratton served from 2014 to 2019 as the assistant director of WSU’s nationally recognized Roots of Contemporary Issues program, which is designed to help first-year students develop historical thinking and analytical skills about humanity’s most pressing contemporary problems. He has earned numerous grants and awards for teaching at WSU and beyond, including the WSU President’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2019) and the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award (2014).

Stratton earned his bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Presbyterian College (2003), his master’s in history from Auburn University

(2005), and his Ph.D. in history from Georgia State University (2010). He is the author of Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship (University of California Press, 2016) and Power Politics: Carbon Energy in Historical Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2021). His most recent research project explores the connections between racism, urban development, and professional baseball in Atlanta, Georgia, Stratton’s hometown. That work has been supported by a 2020-2021 WSU Center for Arts and Humanities fellowship for which Stratton published “Bronze Hammer: Race and the Politics of Commemorating Henry Louis Aaron” with Atlanta Studies in 2021.