Deborah
Canter
Professor, Head and Graduate Program Director
Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management and Dietetics
Deborah
Canter is a professor, department head and graduate program director
in the department of hotel, restaurant, institution management and
dietetics at Kansas State University, where she has been on the
faculty since 1977.
Canter received her bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville with food systems management as her area of interest and expertise. In addition to her administrative duties, she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses and conducts research with masters and doctoral students.
In the mid-1990s, working with a $200,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, Canter and her colleagues at K-State re-engineered the complete dietetics curriculum to be offered online, which was one of the first such projects in the country. Today, the program is the largest distance education program in dietetics in the United States.
Canter provides leadership for the development of an online master’s degree in dietetics with the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance and faculty from eight universities.
Canter was recognized in 1991 as Professor of the Year for Kansas by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 1997, she was the recipient of the American Dietetic Association Foundation Award for Excellence in Practice in Dietetics Education, and she is widely recognized as an excellent teacher and speaker. In 2000, she was named the William Evans Fellow by the department of nutrition at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. In May of 2002, Canter was invited to present the Sevie Nelson Memorial Lecture for the Kansas City Dietetic Association. Also in 2002, she was awarded the Medallion Award from the American Dietetic Association for her leadership and contributions to the association and the dietetics profession.
Canter has served in numerous capacities within the American Dietetic Association including national secretary for the Dietetic Educators of Practitioners Practice Group and four years on the American Dietetic Association Board of Directors as chair-elect and chair for the Council on Education and as two-time chairman of the Commission on Dietetic Registration. She represented Kansas for six years as a member of the American Dietetic Association House of Delegates. Canter was chair of the national nominating committee and also served as chairman of the Foodservice Systems Management Education Council.
Canter was editor of The School Food Service Research Review from 1992 to 1998. She is a member of the advisory board of the National Food Service Management Institute and an appointed member of the Phase 2 Future Dietetics Practice and Education Task Force of the American Dietetic Association -- a group charged with making recommendations for sweeping changes in dietetics education.
Canter has worked with numerous graduate students through the years and published articles in the areas of human resources issues in foodservice management and hospitality organizations as well as multi-department management in dietetics. She is co-author of an introductory text widely used in dietetics programs across the country and has authored two chapters in textbooks on the history of dietetics education.
She can be reached at 785-532-5507 or canter@k-state.edu.