In Memoriam: Catherine N. Stratton, 1914-2014

Catherine Stratton, the cofounder of the Arts Committee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the board of the Bank Street College of Education in New York and board chair of Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has died on her farm in Newfane, Vermont. She was 100 years old.

Stratton was a native of Los Angeles, California, but raised in Charlottesville, Virginia. She attended Mary Washington College in Virginia and later enrolled at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Stratton’s husband, Julius A. Stratton, served as president of MIT from 1959 to 1966. During this period, she co-founded the Arts Committee at MIT to counterbalance the institution’s emphasis on science. The committee created a policy that 1 percent of the budget for any new building on campus would go toward art. That policy is still in place.

Stratton remained active in the MIT community long after her husband’s service as president. The university has created a lecture series and a collection of graphic arts that have both been named in her honor.