Bio
Professional Bio
Menah Pratt is the Vice President for Strategic Affairs and Diversity, and Professor of Education (full professor with tenure) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. With over thirty years of administrative, academic, legal, fundraising, advancement, and community engagement experience, Dr. Pratt envisions, leads, and manages large-scale transformational strategic initiatives, including diversity and inclusion efforts, at public and private higher education institutions. She is the founder of the Faculty Women of Color in the Academy National Conference, now in its 11th year and hosted by Virginia Tech. Nationally recognized as a leader, scholar, and author of four books on issues of race, class, gender, culture, diversity, women’s leadership, education, and critical race feminism, Dr. Pratt was selected as the 2023 Individual Winds of Change award by the Forum on Workplace Inclusion; the 2023 recipient of Top 50 Women Leaders in Virginia; and the 2021 Inclusive Excellence Individual Leadership Award recipient by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. She is currently a member of the 2023-2024 American Council on Education Fellowship cohort.
Dr. Pratt received a bachelor’s degree in English with high distinction (minors in Philosophy and African-American Studies) and a master’s degree in Literary Studies from the University of Iowa.
She earned a law degree, as well as a master’s and doctorate in Sociology, from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Pratt-Clarke’s teaching and research interests include issues of race, class, and gender in education, with a focus on the transdisciplinary analysis of diversity issues in higher education. She has taught at Fisk University (English and African-American Literature); American Baptist College (English and Speech at the men’s and women’s prisons); Vanderbilt University (Sociology and College of Law); and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (African-American Studies and College of Law).
In addition to publishing several articles and book chapters, her first book was Critical Race, Feminism, and Education: A Social Justice Model in 2010. In 2017, Journeys of Social Justice: Women of Color Presidents in the Academy and A Promising Reality: Reflections on Race, Gender, and Culture in Cuba were published. A Black Woman’s Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor: Lessons about Race, Gender, and Class in America was awarded the 2018 American Education Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award for outstanding scholarship. Blackwildgirl: A Writer’s Journey to Take Back Her Superpower is forthcoming in 2024 with She Writes Press, with a companion journal and audiobook.
Dr. Pratt previously served for almost ten years as Associate Chancellor for Strategic Affairs, Associate Provost for Diversity, and Title IX Officer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was also Associate Professor (with tenure) in the College of Education. Before joining Illinois, she worked at Vanderbilt University for eight years. As the first University Compliance Officer (including oversight of the Vanderbilt University and Medical Center) and Assistant Secretary of the University, she oversaw governance and compliance matters, including the Board of Trust Office and associated committees. In addition, she served as University Counsel with responsibility for real estate and construction legal matters and negotiated over $500M of construction contracts. Dr. Pratt is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Tennessee. Her expertise includes real estate, commercial lending, public finance, construction, civil rights, affirmative action, and equal employment opportunity law.
With a renaissance background, she is an arts advocate (owned a frame shop and art gallery in Nashville); a classically trained pianist and violinist; and a former professional tennis circuit athlete. She is a founding member of the Pratt Music Foundation at Illinois Wesleyan University, which has raised $700,000, and provided almost 400 classical music scholarships (30 annually) for free lessons for k-12 students since its founding in 1998.