When you awaken from a long coma to give a final lecture, then pass from this world
just hours later, you indeed have the soul of a teacher. That’s what transpired at 3:00
AM with Dr. Glenn Martin. He was a long-term professor at Indiana Wesleyan University
(1967-2004), and mentor to a few hundred of us. A testimony to his brilliance
and mentorship is that over 200 foreign students made the trek to Indiana to study
with him after hearing him speak.
Dr. Martin taught political history and in each lecture he would fill chalkboards
(and later whiteboards) from memory. He facilitated critical intelligence in a very
intense manner—almost scary to the novice student. This short, fiery, old-school
lecturer with a comb-over treated every class as if it were his last, and students responded.
His funeral filled a large sanctuary with alumni from across the nation and
from around the world.
During his last several months of living with a brain tumor, and the rather visible
swelling that accompanied it, he still taught classes, though with an assistant present.
Sometimes he would need to play a tape from years before, then handle questions
while seated. His body finally waned and within days he was unconscious in
emergency care. After two weeks of no response, the doctors shared that his life was
likely within hours of ending. Then something magical happened, something that
still brings tears to my eyes just typing the story.
In the middle of the night, one of the nurses heard a lot of noise coming from
Dr. Martin’s room. And there, through the glass wall, she could see Dr. Martin—still
flat on his back, head still bandaged, tubes still in—lecturing! He had regained consciousness
and began to write with one hand on an invisible board, and occasionally
make gestures with the other as he gave an outline of world history. The nurse called
other nurses and hospital staff into the room for a closer look.
After nearly three hours of this intense lecture, just as abruptly and with the same
grace with which he lived, he ended. He seemed to put down the invisible marker and
his hands stilled and lips went silent. There they remained until his breath expired.
His “students” realized that they had enjoyed a blessing—his final lecture. It was as if his life wasn’t finished until he taught one more time—and though we have no video,
no transcript, or no notes from this lecture, his actions spoke volumes. He was, and
is, a teacher: uniquely brilliant. Predictably intense. Radically compassionate. Tender.
Effective.
A few years earlier I had interviewed him on film about the success of his approach—
during his tenure over 90% of all his majors graduated. This included a
tough stretch in the 1970s and early 80s when the school’s overall graduation rates
were abysmal for a small residential campus, floundering between 19 and 26 percent!
He responded, “Jerry, I don’t know much about retention theories and programs.
Never have. I’m not as concerned with why students might fail, but why they can
succeed. If Admissions says they qualify to be at this college, to sit in my class, then
I treat each one of them as if they have infinite possibilities in the sight of God.” In
a sense, he was helping them to dream, to align with noble causes and to graduate
running to jobs and/or graduate programs.
Dr. Martin’s story occasionally prompts me to wonder—what will be my final lecture?
When will teaching end and my passion wane? I would be happy to die at the
whiteboard, facilitating a breakout group, or in a café, knowing that it wasn’t my
duration, but my donation that mattered.
2010