He continued his studies under Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University Bloomington earning a Masters of Fine Arts in 1966.
In 1969, Nathan Lyons founded Visual Studies Workshop, a non-profit education and media arts center with which Fichter would maintain a lasting association.
Leaving the Eastman House in 1968, Fichter became an Assistant Professor at UCLA, where he taught with Robert Heinecken and Todd Walker.
From 1971 - 1975, Fichter held visiting artist and teaching positions at UCLA, the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and at Florida State University.
They serve as the Co-Directors of The Lillian E. Smith Center for Creative Arts, at Clayton, GA, a not-for-profit arts group whose mission is to offer a place where gifted creative artists and scholars in various disciplines may find the conditions of quiet solitude and privacy in which to pursue their work.