Interim dean of students Roger Howard completed his first week as dean today after coming out of retirement to step in for Alicia Chavez, who announced her resignation earlier this month. Howard has spent the greater part of his life in Madison, with almost three decades of service to the university.

The Badger Herald recently interviewed Howard to discuss his priorities for the future and his love for UW-Madison.

Badger Herald: What has changed about UW since you first came?

Roger Howard: When I first came, the campus was at the tail end of its tremendous growth spurt, which happened at the end of the 1960s. But more dramatically, those were the years of most political protest. So, there was a series of years through the early ’70s where a large part of what we were doing was reacting to the protests.

Those two themes — the expansion and the impact of the protests — were key. In many respects, what happened during the years afterward was that the university was recovering or adjusting to those changes. Student organizations were dramatically and disastrously affected by that chaos and they have gradually adjusted. It was not until the late 1980s when the university began to invest much more into student services.

BH: What do you consider the major issues on campus today?

RH: Well, that’s the question I’ve been asking everyone. I think finding reasonable and effective ways to broaden diversity continues to be major issues. The budget is always a major issue.

An issue I consider important is including students more in decision-making processes. How can we make sure that we’re understanding clearly what has changed about students year to year? Student culture changes in lots of important ways in a fairly quick time period. Our priorities need to fit who the students are today. For all of our services, it raises the question, “Are our old ways still the best way to do things?”

BH: What do you plan on doing differently as dean of students?

RH: Well, I think my situation is a little different than Alicia’s. I have lots of experience with the campus. I know student leaders and faculty well.

But it’s also true that I’m the interim dean and I’m only going to be here for a few months, so a lot of my job will revolve around the search for the new dean. I will help recruit candidates, which is a major part of my job. I’m not going to propose major changes. I think that’s inappropriate. I want to make sure the new dean is comfortable.

BH: How is the climate in the dean of students office now?

RH: When you have significant changes in an office, it always shakes the floor you stand on. It’s destabilizing. Here you have a staff who had a major change in administration recently and now they have to do it all again. They will do their jobs, but it’s destabilizing, and I want to help smooth that out for the new dean. It’s both exciting and frightening at the same time.

BH: What are you looking forward to the most about this semester?

RH: The most enjoyable opportunity so far has been to re-meet students I’d worked with and staff and faculty I’d known before. I always get a sense of excitement about being involved. The university has extraordinary energy. There’s nothing like it in the outside world. I look forward to that.

BH: What are you dreading the most?

RH: I’m not dreading anything, but retirement is wonderful. It’s wonderful to go trout fishing at the drop of a hat. I’ll miss that.