Charles Allen Ratliff

Charles A. Ratliff the son Charles W. Ratliff and Ardra Mae Bowe, was born October 25, 1949 in Oakland California.

Charles has had more than 50 years’ experience in education as a counselor and advisor in secondary schools, as counselor and administrator at the university level and, a policy analyst for higher education in California. He obtained his baccalaureate degree in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, his Master’s degree in Counseling and Educational Psychology at California State University, Hayward (California State University, East Bay), and his doctorate in Administration of Higher Education and Policy Analysis at University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Ratliff has served as a consultant to numerous national, regional, state and local agencies on a wide variety of topics. He has worked with the California Department of Education in developing an instructional program for exceptional children; with the National Institute of Mental Health in efforts to establish a national mental health consortium, with the U. S. Forest, Service Regional Office of Civil Rights in development strategies plans for organizational and leadership changes; and the Alameda County Juvenile Services to develop plans for incorporating vocational education into the educational program provided to youth offenders.

Dr. Ratliff is also recognized for his leadership and contributions to programs designed to assist disadvantaged youth. He is noted for having developed model high school and college programs that effectively elevate the educational aspirations. He also was one of the co-founders of the Western Association of Educational Opportunity Programs (WESTOP), a regional association establish to represent the interest of low-income and disadvantaged families in the western states.

Dr. Ratliff has served as the Director of an Upward Bound Program in Long Beach, Director of the Educational Opportunity Program and Director of Student Academics Services in Hayward as well as an academic senator in two state universities. Dr. Ratliff retired his employment in 2004 as the Associate Director for Academic and Fiscal Studies at the California Postsecondary Education Commission. In 2005, Dr. Ratliff was called from retirement to again work for the state of California as a Special Trustee, Compton College. The later years of his retirement Dr. Ratliff was a co-founder and secretary for the HAWK Institute (Higher Attainment Through Wisdom and Knowledge) a program by successful Black men “to foster a positive agenda for change to increase the educational economic and personal attainment of Africa American youth and young adults”.

Dr. Ratliff, who preferred to be called Charles, was a loving husband for 51 years to wife Dorothy Ratliff, father to Shauna, Monterey, CA, and Kenya Ratliff-Youngblood, husband John Youngblood, Hampton, VA, and grandfather to Kirsten Smith. He leaves to morn his sister Sheila Ratliff-Daniels, Sacramento, California, brother Kenneth B. Ratliff, Columbia, South Carolina and Vaught Ratliff, Louisville, Kentucky, plus many other loving friends and family. He was known to all his wife’s Girl Scout troupes as Grandpa.