One of Washburn’s newer faculty members, Bill Fiander, lecturer political science, has started to pave his way here at the university. He started with Washburn two years ago and in his first year he was solely an adjunct professor. He then became a full time professor in the political science department in the spring of 2023.
Fiander began his education at Stanford University obtaining his undergraduate degree in earth science. He then pursued a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from George Washington University.
“I soon realized that as much as I wanted to plan for the environment, my real dream was to go back and save my hometown,” Fiander said.
Before joining Washburn, Fiander had a 32 year career as a city planner for local government. He worked this role in Topeka for 25 years, with the last 10 as the head planner for the city.
However, his passion for planning is not what inspired him to pursue teaching. After he earned his bachelor’s degree, he taught junior varsity football at his former high school for three months. By doing this, he acted as a teacher and mentor to high school students.
“As much success as I’ve had throughout my career, I look back to that little three month period of my life, right out of college, as one of my favorite moments of my entire life,” Fiander said. “Working with kids and seeing them grow at that stage, I just loved it.”
When it became the time he could retire, he chose to begin a second career as a teacher. Fiander wanted to get students excited in government as well as public service. He wishes to change the narrative within this discipline as there is currently a distrust within the government.
In his classes he often quotes the Roman poet Virgil by saying, “the most noble motive is the public good.” Fiander will then tell his class about how rewarding this type of career is if someone is in it for the right reasons.
“You can have an incredibly satisfying, not just career, but life, impacting people’s lives” Fiander said.
Within his role at Washburn, there wasn’t much of a public administration department prior to his arrival. Typically, a degree for planning is held at the master’s level rather than undergraduate.
Therefore, the political science department added public administration into their department when Fiander joined the faculty. Fiander is now the full time public administrator while the rest of the department remains political science.
“He is a very team oriented person who wants to contribute to whatever he is involved in,” said Linsey Moddelmog, associate professor political science. “We’re really lucky to have him here at Washburn because of his experience and education in urban planning that he can now teach to students.”
Outside of work, Fiander spends his time with his family as well as being a passionate sports fan for Pittsburgh, PA. He also challenges himself by learning how to play instruments such as drums and violin. Through these various passions he pushes the idea of trying different things and becoming versatile within interests.
“There’s so much more to you than you know,” Fiander said. “I love to bring that out of the students I work with and out of the young professionals I work with, to believe that you can do things that maybe you don’t believe you can do.”
This semester, fall 2023, Fiander teaches PO107 (KS, State, & Local Government) and PO245 (Introduction to Public Administration).
Edited by Cheyenne Hittle and LeSha’ Davis
