Martha Kanter

Dr. Martha J. Kanter is a long-time friend of Foothill and De Anza. She served as President of De Anza College and then Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District for sixteen years. She began her career as an alternative high school teacher and holds a B.A. degree in Sociology from Brandeis University, an M.Ed. from Harvard University and an Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco.

Dr. Kanter lovingly created this scholarship in memory of her husband Carl L. Brown who was the Founder and Director of the High Tech Center Training Unit for the California Community Colleges, operated through De Anza College. The Center’s work focuses on the development, use and evaluation of all types of assistive technologies, alternate media and web accessibility to support the success of students with disabilities and provide professional development opportunities for faculty and staff for classroom use. Carl used a wheelchair as the result of a degenerative neuromuscular disorder that limited the mobility of his limbs, but he never saw his disability as a hardship, only a life circumstance that he changed how he accomplished his goals. This scholarship is for a student who has overcome adversity due to his or her disability and is making use of assistive technologies, alternate media and/or the web to achieving his/her educational, career and life goals.