By Nick Sengstock
To say that Professor of Psychology Peter Fabian has left a lasting impact on Edgewood College would be an understatement.
Fabian is retiring after 32 years of teaching.
Fabian started at Edgewood in 1987 teaching business psychology and went on to create the Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program, as well as the Family Center.
The Marriage and Family Therapy program ran its first semester in 1996, growing out of successful Adult College Completion courses on the topic.
The Marriage and Family Therapy program offers a systems-level methodology to psychology.
This model of psychology is one of the only models that looks at the broader picture and the systems at play when understanding what someone is going through.
Students think highly of the method. “The program held space for me to welcome vulnerability in my process of professional and personal growth. To say it has changed me forever would be an understatement,” said Bret Stalcup, a current student in the MFT program.
The program is supplemented by the liberal arts tradition. “The liberal arts tradition is, ‘how do we help a person become a person?’… seeing the broader picture,” said Fabian.
The Family Center was founded in 1998 and, at the time, was run by Fabian and three part-time interns. Today, the center is one of the largest mental health providers in Dane County, treating many different facets of mental health on a sliding-fee scale.
Another role of the Family Center is to create a space where MFT students can do their internships while practicing the systems-based psychology model.
Fabian has been the clinical director of the family center and chair of the MFT grad program.
When he retires, however, new individuals will step into those roles.
Will Hutter, a graduate from the first Marriage and Family Therapy cohort, has become the chair for the program.
The Family Center’s new clinical director is Juli Culver. Fabian said he is very pleased to leave the program and Family Center to Hutter and Culver. “It needs to fly. The program needs to grow,” he said. “It can’t just be mine anymore. Same for the Family Center.”
Students praise Fabian. “If wisdom could be embodied in a person, the body of Peter Fabian’s is certainly one of the first that comes to my mind,” said Stalcup.
Fabian said the campus must continue to foster compassion and bridge gaps.
“Faculty and staff can never think we’ve got this done,” said Fabian.
New students come to Edgewood College every semester, so diversity needs to be continually taught and practiced, he said.
Fabian also said students and the administration need to have a balanced relationship. He illustrated this with a sailing metaphor.
“Students are the wind in the sails, administration is the chute dragging it back [in a storm],” he said.
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