Deanna Martin, age 85, passed away on Monday, September 30, 2024 at the Mission Chateau Senior Living Center in Prairie Village, Kansas.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Deanna Martin was the Director of the Center for Academic Development at the University of Missouri - Kansas City (UMKC) from 1984 to 2002. She created a world-wide education program and helped to establish it in hundreds of academic institutions world-wide.
The University of Missouri - Kansas City awarded Martin a PhD in Education in 1978. While still working on her PhD in reading education in 1972 Martin designed the first Supplemental Instruction offering and applied it to the health sciences. She received a $7,000 grant from the Greater Kansas City Association of Trusts and Foundation to solve the attrition problem among minority professional school students in medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. Martin’s work on SI followed the civil rights era of the 60s – students of color had begun integrating into UMKC, but retention rates were declining. This was the problem she addressed.
Beginning in 1973, Martin became the creator and coordinator of Supplemental Instruction at UMKC. In 1981. This model was accepted by the US Department of Education’s National Diffusion Network (NDN) as an “Exemplary Program.”
The Kansas City Star reported that Martin’s submission was “the first of the nation’s 250 such programs to receive national validation by the U.S. Department of Education ... As a result, [the Department of Education distributed] summaries of its program to colleges across the country.”
The Department of Education’s endorsement gave Martin national attention and promoted her program. By 1990, there were 150 colleges and universities that hosted SI programs, internationally often called “Peer-Assisted Study Sessions.” Martin’s Center for Academic Development treated SI and PASS as one program and conducted training sessions for Certified Trainers (CTs).
The CTs were invited by the UMKC staff to conduct SI Supervisor training workshops and provide consulting services to institutions in their geographic area. Each CT had already established a thriving SI program on their home campus and had institutional support to help other colleges to successfully implement SI. To date, a dozen faculty members or administrators from institutions in the U.S. and colleagues from Australia, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have been selected for both this honor and service.” (Arendale 2022)
In the early 1990’s Martin helped to establish a center for SI in South Africa at Port Elizabeth University – now Nelson Mandela University – and used a variation on Supplemental Instruction, Video Supplemental Instruction (VSI). In the mid-90s, the University of Missouri funded the Center for Academic Development to deliver Supplemental Instruction to the all-Black Ethembeni Community College and (mostly-white) Port Elizabeth University. Independent researchers concluded that VSI may “have positive implications” in a post-apartheid South Africa that lacked experienced teaching staff for the majority-Black nation.
In 2001, the UMKC Alumni Association awarded Deanna C. Martin the Alumna of the Year award in Education. She retired from her position at UMKC in 2002.
Deanna is survived by her son Chris and wife Ritta Martin, son Cole, wife Kelly Andresen, and daughter Claire Martin, and her devoted husband for 43 years and partner for much longer, Robert Blanc.
Deanna’s wishes were to be cremated. A memorial service will be planned at a later date.
Services were under the direction of Vansant-Mills Funeral Home of Clinton, MO.
