George W. Fisher
Appalachian Mountains expert and dean at Johns Hopkins University in the 1980s had ‘amazing mind’ and ‘a big heart’
George W. Fisher, former dean of the School for Arts and Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University, died Nov. 27 of an aneurysm at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital.
He was 86 and lived in Oakenshaw.
“George was a stand-up guy and plain-spoken,” said Matthew A. Crenson, former associate dean of arts and sciences at Hopkins. “He was straightforward, honest, and there was no deception, guile or hidden agendas. He was a pure scientist.”
George Wescott Fisher, son of Irving Norton Fisher Jr., a theater critic and author, and Vivian Hays Fisher, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and raised in Woodbridge, Connecticut.
He spent summers working on a dude ranch out West and digging up dinosaur bones as an assistant on a paleontological project.
After graduating from Choate-Rosemary Hall School in Wallingford, Connecticut, he earned a bachelor’s degree in geology in 1959 from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the rock climbing club and scaled everything from “campus buildings to snow-covered mountains in the Canadian Rockies,” according to a biographical profile.
In 1963, he earned his Ph.D. in geology from Hopkins, and following a two-year stint in the Army Signal Corps where he attained the rank of captain, and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, he joined the Hopkins faculty at Homewood in 1967.
From 1978 to 1983, he served as chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, followed by being dean of the School of Arts and Sciences from 1983 to 1987.
In addition to teaching and holding administrative positions, Mr. Fisher was director of the Institute for Global Studies in Culture, Power, and History from 2002 to 2005, when he retired from Hopkins.
In 2002, he obtained a master’s degree in theology from the Ecumenical Institute of St. Mary’s Seminary and University, where he continued to teach science, ecology and religious thought until 2014.
“Dr. Fisher’s passion for research and teaching reflected and sustained his life-long love of the outdoors, and of the Appalachian Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay in particular,” according to the biographical profile.
“His early research was devoted to studying the geology of the Appalachian Mountain system, producing what is viewed as the definitive summary of southern and central Appalachian geology. He later applied methods of physical chemistry to explore the kinetics of metamorphic processes.”
In the 1990s, he focused his attention on the importance of earth sciences for understanding human sustainability, which led him to explore the connections between the earth sciences and religious thought.
“He was very open and tried to make things uncomplicated,” Mr. Crenson said. “The students found in George the same things I did and they appreciated that. He was just very good at explaining things.”
In 1987, Dr.. Fisher married the Rev. Gretchen van Utt, who had been the university chaplain at Hopkins.
“My husband had an amazing mind and a really big heart,” she said.
Mr. Fisher enjoyed camping and backpacking trips to the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains with his three daughters from an
earlier marriage.
He never stopped traveling and hiking his “beloved Appalachians and farther afield,” family members said.
At his 80th birthday celebration, which was held at Shenandoah National Park, he reminisced about taking both his students and colleagues there for geology trips.
Other pastimes included long-distance biking, sailing with his wife, photography, carpentry and painting. He also loved discussing what he was reading with family, students and colleagues.
“He spent his entire adult life in Baltimore, knew every corner of the city, and cared deeply about its community and landscape,” according to the profile.
He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church with roots both in Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church and in recent years at Knox Presbyterian Church in East Baltimore.
“He was interested in the activities in East Baltimore and was the only white member of Knox Presbyterian Church for well over a decade,” the Rev. van Utt said. “He felt strongly about the white privilege he had grown up with and wanted to change and help bridge the gap between whites and Blacks.”
A graveside service of remembrance will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at Serenity Ridge Natural Burial Cemetery at 2406 Ridge Road in Windsor Mill.
At 1 p.m. Saturday, a memorial service will be held at Knox Presbyterian Church at 1300 N. Eden St.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughters, Catherine Anne “Kate” McKelvie, of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, Lynn Ellen Fisher, of Springfield, Illinois, and Cynthia Lee “Cindy” Fisher, of Champagne-Urbana, Illinois.