EVDS alumnus named one of 30 Most Admired Educators

Stephen Wischer, a Faculty of Environmental Design alumnus, and associate professor of architecture and landscape architecture at North Dakota State University in Fargo, has been named by DesignIntelligence as one of the 30 Most Admired Educators for 2014.

DesignIntelligence is a well-known design publication. Their staff, with input from thousands of design professionals, academic department heads, and students, honours excellence in education and education administration by naming exemplary professionals in architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture every year.

Having earned master’s degrees in fine arts and architecture from the University of Calgary in 2004, it is no surprise that Wischer combines these two creative passions into one unique teaching style.

“It was a great honour to be recognized,” says Wischer, “However, I believe the credit really must be shared with my students.”

Praised for his ability to encourage students’ critical thinking and communications skills, Wischer prioritizes interconnectivity in his lessons, encouraging his students to think about the ways that their work interacts with their surroundings.

He explains, “When I lecture, or when I work with students in the studio, I try to get them to see that they are not alone, that their questions relate to other things, and that, in one form or another, these are part of meaningful questions that have been shared culturally for millennia.”

Past and present students have clearly embraced these opportunities to deepen their understanding of the world around them. Having taught many different classes since starting at North Dakota State, Wischer aims to inspire consciousness in his students by applying lessons of the past to provide them with a deeper source of comparative knowledge for their future work.

“At a time when so much emphasis is placed on specialized approaches often detached from larger contextualizing concerns, I believe that an open and interpretive attitude is extremely important,” he says.

Building on this sentiment, and drawing from his experiences and connection with EVDS, Wischer took the lead in adding an international dimension to his faculty’s student experience by spearheading NDSU’s first-ever semester long term abroad program in Barcelona, Spain.

An associate professor at NDSU since 2005, Wischer received promotion and tenure in the spring of 2013. Above and beyond his teaching work, Wischer is currently a PhD candidate at McGill University and currently has his own art making practice with an upcoming exhibition at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, which will run from September-December 2014.