96-09-13:  REAR ADMIRAL MARIANN STRATTON TO BE HONORED AS WOMEN'S CENTER'S 1996
DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA

By Anne Bromley

Becoming a rear admiral in 1991, Mariann Stratton assumed the highest
post a Navy nurse could hold at that time. Then she helped change the
federal law that limited Navy nurses to the one-star rank so her
successors can excel even further.

A U.Va. School of Nursing graduate, Stratton will be honored Oct. 5
with the University of Virginia Women's Center's 1996 Distinguished
Alumna Award at a benefit dinner for the center, to be held at Carr's
Hill, home of President John T. Casteen III.

A reception, open to the public, will be held for Stratton Oct. 4 from
4 to 6 p.m. in the West Oval Room of the Rotunda. As space is limited,
those wishing to attend must call the Women's Center at 982-2361 to
reserve a spot on the guest list.

When Stratton entered the Navy in 1964, there was "no such thing as a
woman being a flag officer," she said. But even after that door opened
for her and she was promoted to rear admiral, she continued her efforts
to improve the military environment for women. She testified before
Congress on equalizing opportunity for advancement, for example.

"It is important that no barriers exist for females or males to achieve
their capabilities and meet their individual goals," says Stratton, who
retired in 1994.

She also led the Working Group on Prevention of Sexual Harassment for
Women in the Navy and Marine Corps following the 1991 Tailhook
convention scandal, developing new policy and training for personnel.
The incident was "a clarion call for dealing with behavior that was
definitely inappropriate and inexcusable," she says. "Remember, women
being on ships was a new thing. I never personally encountered
harassment professionally, but in Navy medicine we had an 80-year track
record of men and women working together."

After nursing assignments spanning 25 years around the world, including
the U.S., Italy, Ethiopia and Japan, Stratton simultaneously took on
two Navy Medical Department executive positions in Washington, D.C.
From 1991 to 1994 she served as Director of the Navy Nurse Corps and
Assistant Chief for Personnel Management at the Bureau of Medicine and
Surgery.  Among other accomplishments during that tenure, she improved
women's health care in the military community by expanding the
availability of certified nurse midwives and expanded research and
training programs for military nurses.

Stratton, a Houston native who attended Dominican College there, went
back to school and  in 1981 received her master's in nursing and
certificate as an Adult Nurse Practitioner from U.Va.

Since retiring, she has enrolled at the University of Texas at San
Antonio, to pursue her lifelong interest in art.

Previous winners of the Distinguished Alumna Award are: Middle East
peace activist Hanan Ashrawi; astronaut Kathryn Thornton; journalist
Katie Couric; Dr. Vivian Pinn, director of the NIH Office of Research
on Women's Health; and lawyer Linda Fairstein, who heads the Sex Crimes
Prosecution Unit in the New York District Attorney's Office.