Dorothy C. Stratton

Dorothy Constance Stratton, the daughter of Reverend Richard L. Stratton and Anna (Troxler) Stratton, was born on March 24, 1899, in Brookfield, Missouri. Stratton's father was a Baptist minister. Her brother, Richard C. Stratton, served as a captain in the U.S. Army's Medical Reserve Corps during World War II. Stratton's family traveled across the Midwest during her youth and she attended high schools in Lamar, Missouri, and Blue Rapids, Kansas. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ottawa University in 1920, a Master of Arts in psychology from the University of Chicago, and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in student personnel administration from Columbia University. ==Career==

Purdue University, Dean of Women In 1933, after receiving her Ph.D. from Columbia, Stratton joined the staff at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and became as its first full-time Dean of Women. She was also an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue and became a full professor in 1940. Military service In 1942 Stratton took a leave of absence from Purdue University and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Women's Reserve of the U.S. Naval Reserve, which was also known as the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). She later credited Lillian Moller Gilbreth, professor of engineering at Purdue, for encouraging her to join the military, but she also recalled that she was willing "to do whatever I could to serve my country" and did not need much encouragement. Stratton was among the members of the first class of the U.S. Naval Training Station at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. After completing her initial training, she briefly served as Assistant to the Commanding Officer of the radio school for WAVES at Madison, Wisconsin. Stratton developed the Coast Guard Women's Reserve program and gave it the name of SPARS, an acronym created from the Coast Guard motto, Semper Paratus, and its English translation, Always Ready. As director of the SPARS, a position that Stratton held until 1946, her primary role was to originate policies for SPARS that related to procurement, training, utilization, and maintenance of its members' morale. She oversaw significant growth in the program. More than 10,000 enlisted women and 1,000 commissioned officers served as SPARS in the remaining years of the war. Stratton retired from the military in January 1946. Stratton remained proud of the fact the U.S. Coast Guard used the highest percentage of women of any military branch of service during the war. Return to civilian life Stratton remained active in the years following her military service. From 1947 to 1950, she worked for the International Monetary Fund as its first director of personnel. In 1950 she became national executive director of the Girl Scouts of the USA, a post she held until her retirement in 1960. She served as a United Nations representative of the International Federation of University Women and chaired the women's committee of the President's Commission on Employment of the Handicapped. ==Later years==

In 1958 Stratton appeared as a guest challenger on the television show To Tell the Truth. She was the last survivor of the original women's reserve directors who served during World War II. In 1985 Stratton relocated from Newtown, Connecticut, to West Lafayette, Indiana, to share a home with Helen B. Schleman, the former assistant director of the SPARS and a colleague of Stratton's at Purdue University. ==Death and legacy==

Stratton died on September 17, 2006, in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the age of 107. == Honors and tributes ==

Stratton was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1946 for her contributions to women in the military. She was also the recipient of the University of Chicago's Alumni Association's Public Service Award. Stratton was also awarded honorary degrees from Ottawa University, Russell Sage College, Smith College, Bates College, and Purdue University. Following her death in 2006, the Dorothy C. Stratton NROTC Scholarship Fund was established at the Purdue University Foundation. In 2023, Purdue University's Veteran and Military Success Center was renamed in honor of Stratton's service to the university. Stratton served as Purdue's Dean of Women from 1933 until 1942, when she was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. ==Selected published works==

• "Review of Introduction to Educational Psychology in Psychological Bulletin 34#8 (Oct. 1937): 624–626. . • Your Best Foot Forward: Social Usage for Young Moderns (1940), co-authored with Helen B. Schleman • "Launching the SPARs" in Naval History 3 #2 (April 1989): 58+ == See also ==

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