Our Staff
If you are interested in requesting assistance from the Office of Quality Improvement, please contact us at 262-6843. We also invite you to e-mail your ideas, questions and comments to: quality@oqi.wisc.edu.
Barnes, PJ - Office Systems Support
Cotter, Maury - Director
Harris, Darin - Consultant
Luker, Kathy - Consultant
Paris, Kathleen - Consultant, Distinguished, Emerita
Thayer-Hart, Nancy - Consultant and Coordinator for Consulting Services
Watson, George - Consultant
Zanzig, Ann - Consultant
Barnes, PJ
Office Systems Support
199 Bascom Hall
608-262-6843
pjbarnes@wisc.edu
PJ Barnes manages daily office operations with the help of some exceptionally talented UW-Madison students. A member of OQI for fifteen plus years, PJ enjoys strategizing office systems, whether it is designing or improving existing processes. She also co-teaches an effective meetings workshop on campus, sharing her scheduling tips and techniques. Outside the office, PJ enjoys making and selling seasonal crafts-something she has done since 1984.
Cotter, Maury
Director
193 Bascom Hall
608-262-9313
mcotter@wisc.edu
Maury Cotter is Director of the Office of Quality Improvement and an alumna of UW-Madison. She coordinates the development and implementation of the campus-wide strategic plan working with the chancellor, provost, deans, and groups across campus. Maury and OQI staff facilitate initiatives across campus, which include strategic planning, process improvement, transforming curriculum, restructuring programs and departments, developing effective departments, and improving administrative services. Maury is also active on a national level. She is President of the NCCI - the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education: www.ncci-cu.org. She coordinated the national Total Quality Forum - collaboration between higher education and major U.S. corporations and served on the implementation committee for the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, and the Operating Committee of the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality. Maury speaks internationally and has authored books and articles on planning and improvement in education.
Harris, Darin
Consultant
197 Bascom Hall
608-262-1289
djharris@wisc.edu
Darin Harris works as a consultant and facilitator at OQI delivering services in strategic planning, meeting management, project management, and process improvement. Since joining OQI in 2004, he has worked with dozens of academic departments and administrative units to achieve optimum results. He approaches each organization from a systems perspective, taking into account how processes, people, and content interrelate. Darin emphasizes practical, concrete methods of implementation and change so that great ideas can be turned into sustained action. In 2007, he teamed with FacilitatorU to create a comprehensive, week-long facilitator certification program that has drawn participants from across the US and Canada. Before coming to OQI, Darin spent 10 years as a policy facilitator, conflict resolution specialist, and organizational consultant for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He is an alumnus of UW-Madison and enjoys exploring Madison's rich community with his wife and two children.
Luker, Kathy
Consultant
192 Bascom Hall
608-265-3761
kwluker@wisc.edu
Kathy Luker is a Consultant in the Office of Quality Improvement and in that role helps people on campus access and use data to augment their planning and improvement efforts. From OQI she manages and coordinates the work of the UW-Madison Query Library Project and the UW-System Business Intelligence Core Team which advances access to data on campus and throughout the UW-System. Prior to joining OQI she served as the Associate Project Manager for the Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) project where she represented UW-Madison schools and colleges. Over her academic administrative career she developed a number of information-based systems for use in course planning, academic advising, and student retention.
Prior to coming to Madison, she was an administrator in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Programs she developed at UM-Duluth received the 1990 Retention Excellence Award (Noel/Levitz National Center for Student Retention) and the NACADA Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award. She holds a doctorate in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.
Paris, Kathleen
Consultant, Distinguished, Emerita
608-262-6843
kaparis@wisc.edu
Kathleen A. Paris is a consultant emeritus for the UW-Madison Office of Quality Improvement. During the ten years she served as a consultant for OQI, she provided strategic planning consultation and facilitation to over 100 academic departments, administrative units, and cross-campus efforts.
Prior to joining the OQI staff, she provided consultation and facilitation for strategic planning at educational institutions throughout the country and in Guam and the Virgin Islands. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from UW-Madison, and has served as a senior lecturer on the Madison campus and as adjunct faculty for Cardinal Stritch University. Paris is the author of several books and numerous articles. She received the distinguished prefix in 2002.
Thayer-Hart, Nancy
Consultant and Coordinator for Consulting Services
195 Bascom Hall
608-263-6856
nthayerhart@wisc.edu
Nancy Thayer-Hart is an Internal Consultant and Coordinator for Consulting Services in the Office of Quality Improvement. As a consultant and facilitator, she helps academic and administrative units develop their strategic plans, improve their functions and services, and restructure their organizations - all with the aim of enabling them to carry out their missions effectively and efficiently. Nancy is also responsible for coordinating OQI's flow of projects and services.
Nancy came to UW-Madison in 2003 after more than sixteen years as a manager and consultant in the private sector, where she specialized in customer service, process improvement, and selecting and implementing information systems. Nancy holds a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota. In 2008, she earned a Green Belt Certification in Six Sigma from the Wisconsin School of Business at UW-Madison.
Watson, George
Consultant
194 Bascom Hall
608-265-5122
gwatson@wisc.edu
George Watson is an Internal Consultant in the Office of Quality Improvement. His roles include process improvement consulting and training focusing on strategic planning, project management, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of campus services and programs.
George's prior experience includes a variety of management, instructional, and consulting roles in education, human resources and information technology. He holds a doctorate in Human Resource Education, a master's in Business Systems, and is certified as a Project Management Professional. George and his wife (Sunny) lived in Alaska for 16 years, so he has a number of "Alaskan Stories" to share. An avid bicyclist, George looks forward to his bicycle commute as a great way to start and end his day.
Zanzig, Ann
Consultant
199 Bascom Hall
608-278-1288
aezanzig@wisc.edu
Ann Zanzig is a retired, Emeritus Consultant for the Office of Quality Improvement and also President of AZ Consultants, LLC. Ann spent 25 years in higher education administration as Dean of Students at Edgewood College (Madison, WI) and Director of Student Orientation Programs at UW-Madison. Ann specializes in strategic planning, meeting facilitation, leadership development, principles and tools of process improvement, and human resource allocation, including analysis and design of roles, responsibilities and alignment with functions and core values. She also works with process redesign and workplace climate/culture issues. She has worked with not-for-profit organizations, school systems, governing boards, hospitals, state agencies, and businesses.
Ann has a Master's Degree in Education and Student Personnel from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and a Bachelor's degree from UW-Stevens Point.