Dr. John Fizer was a founding father of the Kyiv-Mohyla Society in 1992, a precursor of the Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation. Dr. Fizer was instrumental in the re-establishment of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1991 when Dr. Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky led the effort to re-open the university after almost a century of closing by Soviet authorities.

Dr. Fizer led the support for the university in the diaspora, and he arranged for significant academic exchanges for faculty members in the 1990’s. John Fizer earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Ukrainian Free University and a Ph.D. in Slavic and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He was a prolific writer. His pioneering books on literary criticism were published to great acclaim. To his list of books must be added 128 published scholarly articles and 98 book reviews.