Sadanand Singh, PhD

Plural Publishing obituary for Dr. Sadanand Singh:

The Plural Publishing family and the professions it serves lost a great friend and a visionary leader with the passing of Dr. Sadanand Singh, on February 27.

Though Dr. Singh was a respected university educator, he was best known as a publisher. Speech-language pathologists, audiologists, otolaryngologists, and a host of other specialists need only look at their bookshelves to see the numerous titles published by College-Hill Press, Singular Publishing Group, and Plural Publishing, Inc, to realize the magnitude of the contribution Dr. Singh made to the education of everyone in those professions.

Dr Singh was born in 1934 in the State of Bihar in India. Predestined to be a farmer in the fields of Bihar, he credited the written word and his love of books with getting him out of the field and launching a career as a speech scientist and, eventually, a publisher.

Dr. Singh earned two doctorate degrees, one in aesthetics from Ranchi University and the other in speech and hearing science from the Ohio State University. From there, he launched a very distinguished career as a speech scientist, with appointments as professor at Ohio University and professor and chairman at Howard University, at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, and later at San Diego State University. He was highly regarded as a scientist and educator, and he had numerous related accomplishments and awards.

Among Dr. Singh’s most cherished accomplishments was being an author. He wrote a number of important books in his early career, including a notable treatise on phonetics, which is now in its third edition. It was Singh’s experience as an author that led him naturally into his other career, that of publisher.

In 1980, Dr. Singh founded College-Hill Press, which quickly became one of the largest publishers in the speech and hearing sciences field with more than 250 titles. He later sold College-Hill Press to Time Inc, under the Little-Brown holdings. Dr. Singh returned to publishing several years later, and, in 1990, he created Singular Publishing Group. In eight short years, Singular held in print more than 350 titles and seven journals.

Dr. Singh tried again to retire from publishing in 1999 when he sold Singular to Thomson Delmar (now Delmar Cengage). In his retirement, however, he founded ContentScan, a company that created an Internet-based literature search program, and in 2004, he and his wife Angie founded Plural Publishing in response to the needs of many of his former authors. Today, Plural Publishing has a growing library in speech, language, hearing, dysphagia, singing, otolaryngology, and related fields.

Dr. Singh’s contributions as a book publisher have had an enormous impact on the professions through the dissemination of knowledge to students and practitioners in the speech, hearing, medical, and singing professions. He was rewarded with a wealth of professional awards and recognitions. A partial list includes three honorary degrees, honorary Phi Beta Kappa membership, the Wilber Gould Highest Honors award from the American Voice Foundation, and the Distinguished Services Award from the Council of Graduate Programs in Communication Services and Disorders. In 2004, San Diego State University honored him with the endowed Sadanand Singh Professorship in Communication Sciences and Disorders. And in 2006, he received the Honors of the American Speech-Hearing-Language Association—the professional association’s rarely bestowed highest award—as well as the Lybarger Award, the highest honor of the American Academy of Audiology. Most recently, he received the Diversity Award from ASHA.

Dr. Singh had not only a brilliant mind; he also had a huge heart. Family was at the forefront of his priorities. Despite the distance of miles, he and his brothers spoke daily. He spent much of his time with Angie, his wife of 20 years, his twin teenage daughter and son, Sapna and Sanjay; his adult children from previous marriages, Samir, Kalpana, Meena, Sheila, and Munni, and their children. He also returned to India to visit family annually. It seems that every field this man, who had been predestined to be a farmer, touched proved fertile. In addition to seeking balance through cultivating a prolific edible garden in his terraced backyard, Dr. Singh cultivated scores of lifelong friendships around the world.

He also leaves behind a staff saddened but devoted to carrying on the unique publishing vision he had for Plural Publishing and the professions it serves.

In honor of Dr. Singh’s many educational philanthropies, a fund has been established:
The San Diego Foundation
Dr. Sadanand Singh Fund

Friends who wish to join us in honoring Dr. Singh may send contributions to:
TSDF/Dr. Sadanand Singh Fund
2508 Historic Decatur Road Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92106