Alumni Spotlight

Joel Fischer '90

Prize-winning Peacemaker

Joel Fischer '90 — out standing in his field.

As a Quaker and former student of Westtown School at Pennsylvania, Joel Fischer ’90 watched many of his graduating peers select Earlham. He, too, would eventually become an Earlham student and Peace and Global Studies (PAGS) and Religion interdepartmental major. Although it took five years to find his way to Earlham’s PAGS program, he made up for it in good time. Sixteen years after graduating Earlham, Fischer received the Howard Richards Ethical Construction Award as recognition for carrying peace values beyond Earlham and into the workforce.

After one year of studying engineering at Drexel University and another year of studying philosophy at West Chester State University, Fischer sought out a college with an interdisciplinary program to meet his wide range of interests. Earlham would meet that challenge, and would lead to an application of these interests to peace studies. “My Westtown friends’ positive comments as they experienced Earlham certainly made an impact on my decision making,” he recalls.

“I hardly consider myself to be a PAGS poster child,” Fischer humbly claims, but his activities during and post-Earlham indicate otherwise. In two years, he filled his short time at Earlham with activities such as co-convening the Peace & Global Studies Student Committee, working in the PAGS office, helping out at the Food Co-op, and participating in the Jerusalem Program. Looking back at that off-campus experience, he reminisces, “The Jerusalem program semester abroad was a tremendous experience for me, and I consider myself lucky that I was able to include it in the two years of fulfilling my requirements. [It was] life changing for sure.”

Immediately after graduation in 1990, Fischer moved to Santa Cruz, Calif. In 1992, he traveled to the Middle East as the assistant on the Jerusalem Program. He remained in the West Bank at the end of the semester and found work with a variety of local and international NGOs. His first position was with Bruce Stanley ’73 at the AMIDEAST office in Jerusalem. In 1995 he moved to Belgium and began to volunteer with the UIA, or Union of International Associations, and later joined the organization’s paid staff.

At the 2006 West Coast PAGS reunion in Berkeley, Calif., Fischer was awarded the Howard Richards Ethical Construction award for his work with the UIA. Upon receiving the award, Fischer was “stunned, initially,” but “quite pleased, of course.” This is the third year for this award, presented to an Earlham student with a steady commitment to peacemaking, a dedication to the ethical construction of a culture of peace, and a consistent practice of establishing cooperative, democratic and empowering social change processes. Krista Alderson, a member of the Howard Richards selection committee, spent time with Fischer during his second trip to Jerusalem. She recalls him as someone who “takes the work of peacemaking very seriously. It's been exciting to see how his career has utilized so much of his PAGS education, and what great work he is doing at UIA.”

The UIA was founded in 1907 as an ambitious group intended to facilitate through research and information the creation and activities of governmental and non-governmental international bodies. A few the UIA’s many aims include the creation of better networking between international organizations, exploration of their intentions and strategies and the promotion and development of non-governmental networks such as non-profit and voluntary associations. The most impressive of the UIA’s goals is “to contribute to a universal order based on principles of human dignity, solidarity of peoples and freedom of communication.”

Within the UIA, Fischer wears many hats. He is a co-editor of the Yearbook of International Organizations, the most comprehensive reference guide to intergovernmental organizations (IGO) and international non-governmental organizations (INGO). He is also the head of the UIA’s Congress Department and has ongoing involvement in their information and computer systems.

Fischer now resides just outside of Berea, Ky., with Kendrick, his wife of one year, five dogs and two cats. A typical day for him begins at 6 a.m., where he begins working almost immediately to ensure as much crossover as possible with his colleagues in Belgium, who are six hours ahead. Because the majority of his work involves telecommuting, he spends approximately 7.5 hours in front of his home computer.

Fischer insists that credit is due to his colleagues and friends in Santa Cruz, Calif.; Nyack, New York; the Middle East and Brussels, as well as his EC classmates and professors: “The trajectory of my life and work would not have been possible without the influence, support and cooperation of so many people.”