The Martha Maxwell Story (in her own words)

In 1939, I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Maryland but left college in 1942 and became a war bride. Later, I went back to finish my bachelor's degree in psychology and economics after WWII along with the returning veterans who said "Martha, you still here?" I earned a Masters in counseling psychology in 1948 and then accepted a job at the counseling center at American University . At A.U. I taught a night course in reading improvement for adults and started a reading lab. (With a job that paid $3000 per year for 12 months, I was not about to refuse because I had no preparation and experience in teaching reading).

After leaving AU in 1950 to have children, I worked part-time - counseled returning GIs at the University of Baltimore and worked at miscellaneous research jobs. In 1952, I returned to the University of Maryland to teach what today would be called developmental reading improvement and study skills courses in the College of Special and Continuing Education - a program for on-trial students, those whose high school averages were less than C.

In 1955, I became the director of the reading and study skills lab at the University of Maryland Counseling Center and also taught undergraduate psychology courses and worked on a Ph.D. in education/psychology that I eventually finished in 1960. Then I remained as Director of the Reading and Study Skills Center , taught graduate courses in counseling and education and headed a new summer program for on-trial students.

In 1968, I moved to the counseling center at U.C. Berkeley to establish their first reading and study skills lab. just in time for the riots and peace marches. Yes, someone did tear- gas the reading lab. and we had other incidents like a Molotov cocktail left on the steps of our old wooden building, that somehow it sputtered out and didn't do much damage I also taught graduate courses in the College of Education, taught a number of extensions courses, evaluated professional programs and started a Summer Institute for Learning Assistance Professionals which ran from 1976 to 1982.

Since retiring from Berkeley in 1979, I kept busy writing, consulting, speaking at conferences, serving as a mentor for MCLCA, Winter Institute, and Kellogg addressing and so on. From 1993 to 1997, I represented the College Reading and Learning Association on the Council for the Advancement of Standards, and recently chaired an Ad-hoc Committee on Adapting the Education 2000-Standards and Assessment for English Language Arts to Colleges, helped revise the CAS Standards for Learning Assistance Program.