Howard reflects on a long and interesting career

The most “frustratingly tantalizing” part of his job, Roger Howard says, has been to be so close to so many lectures, short courses and musical performances at UW–Madison, and yet not be able to snatch more of them up because of a simple deficiency: no time.

But all that’s about to change for Howard, associate dean of students since 1973 and for the past two years also interim associate vice chancellor for student affairs. “I’m eager to start consuming,” he says with a smile.

Consumption will commence July 1, the day he retires from university staff, where he has served since 1969. “I’m looking forward to doing on Monday and Tuesday what I can now only do on Saturday and Sunday,” says Howard.

He wants to attend lots of lectures, faculty brown bags and all the other things that add yeast to the UW–Madison mix. “This is an extraordinarily active place,” says Howard. “There’s so much going on among faculty, staff and students that, because we’re in the middle of it, we don’t always recognize it.”

Howard was in the middle of something when he joined the UW–Madison staff in 1969, and — Holy Tear Gas! — did he ever recognize it.

He had come to the university the year before as a graduate student in African history, after a two-year stint in the Peace Corps in Tanzania. He had seen protests against American involvement in Vietnam in Tanzania and, on his meandering way to Wisconsin, in Paris and New York.

So he felt right at home when he arrived in Madison, which was experiencing its own unrest. Howard began working as a housefellow at Ogg and then as a residence hall adviser at Witte, In fact, he was in the war zone at Witte.

“Because Witte is close to Mifflin Street, there was a parade of Vietnam protesters, police and troops surging by,” he says. “There was an accordion-like movement in and out of Witte as students tried to escape police and tear gas. I would see bloody heads and wheezing people. It was a time that was both exciting and frightening.”

In the middle of all this uproar, Howard met the man who would become his mentor and lifelong friend, Paul Ginsberg. Ginsberg, who served as dean of students from 1971 to 1987, was willing to show up at student meetings in the evening. Indeed, he often was the only administrator willing to attend these hostile occasions.

“I remember Paul coming to a meeting about inviting members of the Black Panthers to campus,” says Howard. “I thought he was dead wrong on the issue, but I admired his willingness to act personally at a time that would try the courage of anybody. As Woody Allen said, “80 percent of success is showing up.’ Paul gave some personality and warmth to a large, amorphous institution.”

Howard soon had the chance to add his own personality — a very calming, insightful one, people say — to the dean of students office when Ginsberg offered him the assistant deanship in 1971. That boosted the dean of students staff to a total of two. Today it stands at about 120.

In his 30 years with the dean of students office, Howard has seen more than mere expansion. “The most significant changes in my everyday professional life have been the removal of smoking from offices and the introduction of women to senior administrative positions,” he says. “When I came to Bascom Hall, there was not a female administrator in sight.”

He’s had opportunities to go elsewhere, but Howard has stayed put because “my job has substantially changed every five years or so, so I’ve kept my interest,” he says.

What he hasn’t kept is his habit of commuting to work by motorcycle. In 10 years he had three accidents with cars — “drivers tend not to see motorcyclists,” he says ruefully — suffering cuts, bruises and a broken collarbone. Howard says that after the third accident, family support for his motorcycling dried up and blew away.

So he took a Wisconsin Union Minicourse on woodturning, which he and his family agreed had an attractive quality: It’s not done in traffic.

Howard and his wife, Laura, have two children: Andrew, 28, who will soon begin a residency in radiation oncology, and Elisabeth, 26, who recently returned from two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and now works in Chicago as an Americorps volunteer.

Laura Howard, a systems analyst for American Family Insurance, will retire the same day as Roger, July 1. They have plans to travel, but their base of operations will stay rock-steady, he says: “In all of our planning for retirement, we never had a twinkling of interest in leaving Madison.”