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Robert Booth Fowler (1940-2024), an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, departed from us in the afternoon of January 13 in a hospital in Tucson, Arizona after a sudden illness. Booth was an esteemed and beloved colleague who excelled in research and campus service while achieving legendary status as a teacher. As a professor in both Political Science and Integrated Liberal Studies, he impacted thousands of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as countless citizens with whom he interacted in talks and encounters over the years. As a testament to Booth’s prowess as a scholar and teacher, the department of Political Science was able raise money from students, colleagues, and acolytes to fund a departmental chair after his retirement, the Robert Booth Fowler Professorship.

Booth spent his entire professorial career at Wisconsin, where he taught in the Political Science Department as well as the Integrated Liberal Studies Program, which he chaired for several years. He came to Madison in 1967 after receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University, where he worked with such notable scholars as V.O. Key, Michael Walzer, and Louis Hartz—an intellectually diverse trio that foreshadowed Booth’s own eclectic originality of mind and spirit as a professor. He formally retired in 2002 but spent several years thereafter teaching seminars in the school’s honors program.

Booth specialized in political theory, American politics, and religion and politics. Indeed, he was a pioneer in the latter field. Possessing a keen eye that scrutinized things in his own distinctive way, Booth was able to tap into the budding political importance of religion in the polity. The growth of the field’s significance was due in significant part to his influence.

A sampling of Booth’s many books testifies to the breadth of his thought: The Greening of Protestant Thought; The Dance with Community: The Contemporary Debate in American Political Thought; Unconventional Partners: Religion and American Liberal Culture; Carrie Chapman Catt: Feminist Politician; Enduring Liberalism: American Political Thought since the 1960s; Religion and Politics in America (with Allen Hertzke, Laura Olson, and Kevin den Dulk), and Wisconsin Votes: An Electoral History.

A great professor is often larger than the sum of his or her parts. This maxim applied to Booth in spades. Many friends and students described him as an engaging and thought provoking “enigma” who defied definitive encapsulation. His elusiveness reflected the Socratic nature of the pursuit of truth itself—a connection not lost on his discerning students. On his department website, Booth described his personal intellectual perspective as “part Enlightenment liberal, part Burkean conservative, part Emersonian anarchist, and part religious existentialist.” One looks in vain across the landscape of higher education for another such intellectual personality.

[The following commentary on Professor Fowler’s teaching is drawn from a tribute to his teaching written upon his retirement in 2002.]

Students flocked to Booth’s classes not only because of the subject matter, but because of him. They learned the material from a master, and they learned how to think critically, insightfully, and fairly about the great thinkers and issues he taught. Former students recalled his classes with remarkable vividness, regardless of when their graduations took place. And Fowler alums commonly bear the telltale mark of all true Fowler students: the alert, challenging smile of the inquisitive mind.

More than this, Booth brought the great political thinkers to life in a fashion that linked the past to the present without detracting from the independent significance of either time. His distinctive approach to teaching — which embodied unusual passion, seriousness wedded to inimitable humor and dramatic impersonations — breathed life into the cardinal question of political philosophy: How should we live? And as Booth taught, no one has a monopoly on the answer.

Students generally appreciate the significance of this question when it comes to grappling with the pressing controversies of their time, but they are prone to consider the likes of Plato, Augustine, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Nietzsche to be of merely antiquarian interest. Booth shattered this complacency by shaking the dust off the past and revealing how the struggles of today are extensions of the struggles of yesterday.

By skillfully bringing philosophers to life in class, Booth showed us these thinkers were not just purveyors of abstractions, but driven individuals who sometimes courageously dedicated and even risked their lives to address the crises and important questions of their time with the power of their minds. He helped us to see what it means to think seriously about our lives. And he never whitewashed the thoughts of the thinkers he presented, honoring Nietzsche’s warning that “in casting out your devil, be careful lest you cast out the best that is in you.”

Booth achieved this quietly subversive feat not by being an ideologue or tilting the other way, but simply by doing what he does best — treating all great thinkers from across the political spectrum with the respect that is their due. He opened the doors and provided some cover but left it up to individual students to decide for themselves their intellectual and ethical destinies. In so doing, he broadened horizons while showing regard for the individual freedom that is a necessary ingredient of intellectual life and moral commitment.

Booth gave us liberal education at its best. The university and community will be a different place without him.

Major(s) / Certificate(s): English, ILS Certificate

Current job and anything you’d like to share about your current role: 
Product Operations Manager at Zapier.com – I work for a software automation company on the Product Management team, and get a front seat to new products and features that we’re releasing. The best part of my job is hearing directly from our customers, and turning the thousands of pieces of feedback we get from our users each quarter into a meaningful narrative that we can use to determine strategic areas of investment.

Any previous jobs, continued education, or other experiences that have been meaningful to you:
I’ll always value the time I spent working at small startups. There’s something special about joining a cohesive group of committed people, all playing a part in achieving a singular goal. I loved being able to make an impact on a lot of different areas, which is one of the things that led me to Operations as a career path. (Not unlike being able to get a dose of all the humanities in ILS, you do a bit of everything in Ops!)

How has your ILS experience helped to bring you to where you are today?
Oddly, it almost all comes back to ILS: My ILS professors and fellow students helped me with my application to the Writing Fellows program, which I was honored to be accepted into. I then served as Writing Fellow for several MHR: Entrepreneurship classes, which fostered my interest in Madison’s startup ecosystem, which in turn led me to working for small startups, which helped me develop the communication and technical skills that eventually helped me land a role in a much more established tech company.

With my work in product development, I have to think critically, holistically, and thematically every day. Writing well is a prerequisite for success in an increasingly remote world, and while AI can help, it can’t take the place of structured, critical thinking. And while the meetings that I attend today are in no way as enjoyable as a discussion at Meiklejohn House (😊), I do interact with opinions that can differ from my own, and must present cases with thought, care, and curiosity. ILS helped me with all of these skills, and I deeply value my education to this day!

Any advice for current students? You’ll never know when an opportunity might catch hold, so during school and in your early career, say YES to everything. There’s time to converge on focus areas later.

I am a proud graduate of the ILS program.

Educational Background and Experience:

I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I majored in Political Science, while pursuing my ILS certificate.

During college, I served as an intern for the Chief Legal Counsel for Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson for a semester. I also worked for Waterman & Associates, a Capitol Hill government relations firm, for a summer. I lived at Georgetown University.

Throughout college, I also was a member (tuba) of the Wisconsin Marching Band, which included performances at the 1999 and 2000 Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl Championship games.

I graduated in May 2001 and took a gap year and lived in Washington, D.C., where I served as a civil litigation paralegal to former State Bar of Wisconsin president John S. Skilton, a prominent, international civil litigator and trial attorney.

Living on the East Coast, I was in New York City the weekend before September 11^th, taking in a show before Broadway suddenly closed. I was working near the White House during the attack. I visited each of the three Ground Zeros that year to honor those who lost their lives, including the heroes on Flight 93 who prevented the flight from hitting the White House (where I was located) or Capitol.

I returned to Madison in August 2002 when I started a master’s program at the University of Wisconsin Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs with an emphasis in public management. I served as a graduate intern in management and law at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office under E. Michael McCann in 2003 for a summer. This was my first exposure to work in the courtroom, aside from prior service as a foreperson on a criminal jury in Milwaukee.

I was admitted to the University of Wisconsin Law School and started classes in Fall 2003. I served as a law clerk at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin in 2004-05, including a summer. I assisted J.B. Van Hollen with his successful campaign for Wisconsin Attorney General immediately after he left service as U.S. Attorney.

During law school, I serve as an editor for the National Symposium on Enforcement Litigation of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, entitled “Law and Freedom.” It focused on issues of liberty and security after 9/11.

In my final year, I served as an intern-prosecutor under the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s practice privilege, prosecuting cases in the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office, which is in a rural area between Milwaukee and Madison. I was offered and accepted a full-time position as a Public Service Special Prosecutor in January 2006, handling criminal and juvenile delinquency cases there. This was before graduation and rather unusual but approved by DA David Wambach and the courts.

Professional Background and Experience:

Upon graduation, I was sworn in as a state Assistant District Attorney. In that capacity, I prosecuted misdemeanor, felony, juvenile delinquency, and children in need of protection and services cases for the State and County of Jefferson. After less than two years, I was approached to run for district attorney by outgoing DA Wambach—who was departing to be the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s statewide cold case homicide prosecutor.

While in Jefferson, I tried 25 jury trials, countless fact-finding hearings, a homicide jury trial to guilty verdict, and drafted the legal policy and procedure for the first-of-its-kind Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (DTC) in Wisconsin. Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson later presided over the graduation of the first defendant from the program. DTC is a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) best practice program, aimed at rehabilitating drug users, so they can re-enter society as productive members of the community.

In 2009, after losing the November 2018 election, Milwaukee County District Attorney John T. Chisholm offered me the opportunity to join his office. I served seven years as an Assistant District Attorney in Milwaukee. I served first as a chronic offender prosecutor, before being appointed to Team Captain of the Domestic Violence Unit, where I supervised 10 prosecutors.

After the Azana Spa massacre, I helped lead an effort with the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executives Association, comprised of chiefs of police and the Sheriff, to bring the Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) and the High-Risk Team (HRT) Initiative to Milwaukee County and Wisconsin. Both are focused on targeting relationships where there is a high risk of homicide based on risk assessments and outreach by training professionals, including victim advocates and treatment providers. Both also are U.S. DOJ best practice programs.

Milwaukee’s HRT is unique in that it includes application of the District Attorney’s Witness Protection Unit, comprised of investigators who focus on targeting witness tampering and intimidation of victims and witnesses. It was created by the District Attorney after the execution of a witness in a violent crimes case.

I also helped Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern lead the Domestic Violence Unit’s transition to the Sojourner Family Peace Center, a Family Justice Center (FJC), which is another U.S. DOJ best practice program. It provides a single location for victims and their children to receive comprehensive services, including from victim advocacy, medical and legal professionals.

Opening the Domestic Violence Unit at the Sojourner Family Peace Center required coordinating remote access for prosecutors co-located at Sojourner, which is blocks away from the Milwaukee County Courthouse—years before the COVID-19 pandemic made that sort of remote access required for professionals such as attorneys.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, among other publications, has covered the success of the LAP, HRT, and FJC programs.

In 2016, I left Milwaukee for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, where I was sworn in as a state Assistant Attorney General by AG Brad Schimel. In that capacity, I prosecuted health care fraud and abuse cases in its Medicaid Fraud Control & Elder Abuse Unit (MFCU). MFCU is another U.S. DOJ best practice program. It is based on the concept arising out of New York state, of creating a collaborative unit of civil and criminal attorneys and investigators to pursue criminal activity that occurs in the health care system. In that capacity, I also collaborated with the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin, located in Milwaukee and Madison, respectively.

During my tenure at the MFCU, I prosecuted Wisconsin’s case as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Federal Health Care Fraud Takedown, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. This takedown was publicized by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the largest takedown in American history.

After three years, I joined the Waukesha County District Attorney’s Office, where I have served the past four years. Here, I serve in the Sensitive Crimes Unit, where I prosecute sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, and elder fraud cases. I am also involved in the Elder Justice Initiative (EJI) in Wisconsin. EJI is another best practice program, aimed at improving coordinated community response to elder fraud and abuse.

The Value of My ILS Education and Experience:

I greatly value my ILS education and experience. Based on Alexander Meiklejohn’s concept of “The Experimental College,” the ILS program provides a liberal arts program that is unique for a university of Madison’s size. Indeed, Professor Meiklejohn aimed to create an ideal liberal arts program that developed students into “thinking, caring, involved citizens.”

A friend of mine once said that the downside of large universities is that they do not provide the sort of one-on-one student to faculty or small group environment that prestigious, East Coast liberal arts colleges provide. To the contrary, I found that exact environment at UW-Madison and particularly at the Meiklejohn House and North Hall, where the Political Science Department is located. For example, I have memories of meeting one-on-one with ILS Professor Booth Fowler in the Meiklejohn House, having apple cider and cookies for a small group around the fireplace at Professor Dennis Dresang’s residence near Madison West High School, and assisting in a controlled burn at Professor Graham Wilson’s farm.

Today, society is increasingly focused on providing education and training programs focused on readying students for specialized areas of employment in the community. While that is certainly appropriate, especially at a time when there are concerns about the cost of higher education, I believe there is no substitute for learning how to think critically, not just in a specialized employment area, but generally as a citizen in a nation where we have a representative democracy. The aims of ancient thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle at The Academy in Ancient Greece, remain relevant today, that is, to seek ways to improve the human condition.

Interestingly, my paternal grandfather was born in Greece in 1900 and grew up as a sheepherder. He benefitted directly from the evolution of human thought. During his lifetime, he saw the advent of motor vehicles, flight, space travel, computers, and cures for deadly illnesses. Indeed, there has been more progress in the past century than ever before.

As a global society, the work is not finished, however. We need to continue to work together to improve the human condition. One of the most challenging areas of this effort is addressing human conflict. Unfortunately, despite the advances my grandfather saw, war, homicide, and abuse remain prevalent throughout the world. The trauma that results often leads to a cycle of violence or abuse that becomes generational.

In the domestic sphere, the government provides a place for citizens to address and resolve disputes civilly, rather than through violence, power and control, or intimidation. Our nation operates under the rule of law, which is developed through our system of government, by and for the people through the legislative branch. In the criminal context, the rule of law is enforced through prosecution by the executive branch before the courts, the third branch of government.

I believe our efforts in this next century should be focused on improving the justice system so that it renders fairer and just results, and enhancements in efforts to rehabilitate offenders. The goal is to reduce our society’s dependence on the correctional system, that is, our jails and prisons. I believe that is accomplished by curbing the cycle of violence. That will be accomplished by leadership and collaboration across the various disciplines of human thought—those disciplines that exist at large universities like UW-Madison. The hope is to focus those immense dollars, instead, on enhancing the community, rather than responding to the cycle of violence.

I believe those with a liberal arts education, like that envisioned by Professor Meiklejohn nearly a century ago, are best situated to provide that leadership because they are educated in, value and appreciate the multitude of human thought disciplines.