Showcase to highlight campus work improvements

University departments often seek ways to improve their operations, ranging from improving service to constituents to improving their own work environment.

To address these and other areas for improvement, the Office of Quality Improvement and the Office of Human Resource Development hold an annual showcase to display advances initiated by selected departments.

“Showcase 2002 recognizes the many successful improvement efforts occurring across campus,” says Dean Pribbenow, a quality improvement consultant. “It’s an opportunity for people to learn useful ideas from each other.”

The showcase Wednesday, April 3, 8 a.m.-noon at the Pyle Center, will include poster displays, speakers and workshops. The showcase focuses on advancing service excellence and improving campus climate.

Projects in service excellence aim to improve operations and processes within departments and agencies, such as refining the hiring process and advising services.

Maury Cotter, quality improvement director, says departments ask themselves, “Are we providing people what they need, where, when and how they need it?”

The goal of campus climate projects is to foster an environment of respect among faculty, staff and students. Such projects include strategies to encourage communication among individuals, educate about cultural differences and improve civility in the classroom or workplace.

The showcase’s poster exhibits will illustrate the improvements departments have made in the two focus areas. Pribbenow says many groups find the displays helpful and use them to reinvent or build their own office systems.

The event also features speakers such as Brent Ruben, professor of communication and executive director of the Center for Organizational Development at Rutgers University. Ruben will present a keynote address on the need for service excellence in higher education. Provost Peter Spear also will speak at the event.

The final component of Showcase 2002 is a series of workshop sessions on topics including flowcharts, improvement examples and tools for improving work climate. Cotter says the sessions teach departments how they can make improvements. “We provide both examples and tools. We show methods and approaches as well as how people have used them,” she says.

Organizers of Showcase 2002 hope to attract more than 40 poster exhibits and 200 people. The Division of Information Technology and the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education are supporting the event.

Staff from any university department, agency or group is invited to attend the free event. Presenters are encouraged to register in advance. To present a poster exhibit, contact Dean Pribbenow, 265-5122, or P.J. Barnes, 262-6843.

More information, registration: http://www.orhd.wisc.edu/showcase.