Jack C. Fisher, a longtime faculty member in the Whiting
School's
Department of Geography
and Environmental Engineering, died Nov. 13 at The Johns
Hopkins Hospital of undetermined causes.
He was 75. A member of the DOGEE faculty from 1972 to 2000, he
also served as the director of the
Johns Hopkins Center for Metropolitan Planning and Research until
1989.
"Jack was a valuable member of the Whiting School faculty,"
said Dean Nicholas Jones. "For
several years he ran the popular exchange program with Slovenia,
giving our students an exciting
opportunity to continue their education in another culture. He
will be missed."
That sentiment was echoed by his colleague M. Gordon "Reds"
Wolman, who told The Baltimore
Sun, "Jack was an absolutely fascinating fellow and full of
energy and dynamism. After coming to us,
he put together so many fascinating programs."
Fisher was born and raised in Cortland, N.Y., and earned his
bachelor's degree in political
philosophy and doctorate in geography from Syracuse University,
following time out from his studies
to serve in the Army in Germany.
He began his academic career as an assistant professor at
Cornell University, where he focused
on city and regional planning and became director of Regional
Studies. In 1962, he became the
director of the International Urban Studies Program at Wayne
State University in Detroit, where he
worked until Steven Muller, then president of Johns Hopkins,
invited him to lead the university's
Center for Metropolitan Planning and Research.
At Johns Hopkins, Fisher's work focused on city and regional
planning and included the political
and historical geography of Eastern and Western Europe. He also
established the International Urban
Fellowship Program, partially funded by the Ford Foundation,
which brought together urban specialists
in Europe and at Johns Hopkins to collaborate on urban problems.
Fisher also helped establish one of
the country's first study abroad programs designed for
engineering students. In the program,
undergraduate and graduate students were able to study for six
weeks in Austria and Slovenia, while
students from the Technical University of Graz and the University
of Ljubljana spent six weeks in
Baltimore studying at Johns Hopkins.
Fisher, who spoke fluent Serbo-Croatian, Russian and Polish,
traveled often and widely
throughout Western and Eastern Europe. He held various
international appointments, including as an
adviser to the Slovenian Ministry of Science and Technology in
Ljubljana and as the director-
administrator of the Belgrade Transportation and Land Use Study
in Yugoslavia.
He is survived by his wife of 25 years, the former Sally
Key; his former wife, Katherine A.
Fisher of St. Joseph, Mich.; his son, Joseph C. Fisher of St.
Joseph, Mich.; his daughter, Margaret L.
Barrett of Downers Grove, Ill.; his sister, Susan Brown of Troy,
N.Y.; and four grandchildren.
Plans for a memorial service at Johns Hopkins have not yet
been finalized.
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