Tom Stritikus began his term as Occidental College’s 17th president on July 1, 2024.
A first-generation college student and son of immigrant parents, Stritikus brings to Occidental more than three decades of higher education leadership experience, as well as an abiding commitment to values of inclusive excellence and equity.
In his six years as president of Fort Lewis College, a public liberal arts college located in Durango, Colorado, Stritikus helped to reinvigorate a campus that served high percentages of first-generation students and students of color. He led efforts to double the college’s endowment and worked through reconciliation efforts for the Native American-serving institution.
Prior to his presidency at Fort Lewis, Stritikus was a deputy director of education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he developed funding plans for initiatives to improve outcomes for low-income students and youth of color nationwide. Prior to that, he served as the dean of the University of Washington’s College of Education, which US News & World Report ranked as the sixth-best program in the nation during his tenure.
Stritikus’ scholarly work examines the effect of bilingual education policy and teacher practice on the academic lives of Latinx and Asian immigrants. He received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and earned his Ph.D. in language, literacy, and culture from the University of California, Berkeley. He began his teaching experience as a Teach For America corps member in Baltimore.
In addition to his responsibilities at Occidental, Stritikus currently serves as vice chair of the American Council of Education (ACE), a higher education membership organization that leads advocacy efforts in public policy. He and his wife, Debbie Pfeifer, live in the Wallis Annenberg House on the Occidental campus and are the parents of twin boys, both college sophomores—Leo at Dartmouth College, and Hays at the University of Richmond in Virginia.