Student Project Team Leads
Meet the People Leading Workday Student
Bringing Workday to campus takes dedicated effort from staff representing virtually every segment of campus. Everything students currently do in Banner from applying to commencement must be considered, every process and practice has to be identified and reviewed—do we do things this way because it’s our policy or only because Banner makes us do it a certain way? The attention to detail could not be greater.
Add to this close examination of every detail the extent of connectivity among all of the various parts and you begin to appreciate the work that these staff members are bringing to this massive undertaking: hours of meetings with our consulting team not only for things they’re directly responsible for but also sitting in on meetings outside their direct interests where topics intersect with their area of expertise. Every effort is made to ensure that the right people are in the (virtual) room as decisions are made.
While full implementation is not scheduled until September 2026, the system is already being built and tested. Teams are working through testing scenarios designed to reveal any inconsistencies or data errors. Besides identifying adjustments that need to be made, this testing also provides valuable experience with Workday, building staff understanding and expertise in the system and enabling us to implement the new system with confidence when we “go live.” As the project proceeds, we are making careful note of areas where the campus community will need extra support in managing process changes and planning training opportunities accordingly.
So now, please meet some of the heroes making this happen!
Winter Woods
Curriculum & Advising Lead/Academic Foundations Co-Lead
Winter is SOU‘s Registration Systems Analyst. She started at SOU in August of 2016 working the front desk of Raider Student Services. In March of 2018 she moved to the back of the office as the University’s central Academic Scheduling Coordinator and worked in that position until November of 2023. At that time, after working double duty for nearly 8 months, she transitioned into her current role as IT support for the Office of the Registrar.
Winter is very much looking forward to all of the learning and growth opportunities that already have and will continue to come from this challenging transition. She’s also looking forward to finding better solutions to help support our students, staff, and faculty in the coming years.
In her spare time Winter takes aerial dance classes, loves to express herself through her art, is a video game enthusiast, and thoroughly enjoys spoiling her EIGHT cats. ❤️
In addition to leading the Curriculum and Advising team, Winter also co-leads the Academic Foundations team and supports the Records and Reporting work streams.
Tabetha Savage
Testing Lead
Tabetha serves as the Administrative Program Assistant for the Honors College. She came to SOU in June 2022 and has been in her current role since Summer 2023.
Tabetha is excited about the potential Workday offers for automated workflows, advanced reporting and analytics, mobile access, and the improved service we will be able to provide our students.
She’s a huge Star Trek fan, a graphic designer for four car companies in the Greater Houston Area, and once earned an award for her uncanny ability to "ferret out oddities" in Banner while working in the Office of the Registrar at Texas A&M University. In her free time she enjoys watching Twitch streams, cooking new recipes, and PC gaming.
Joe Jackson
Reporting Lead
Joe is SOU‘s Lead Analyst in Institutional Research. He’s been at SOU since 2021.
As someone deeply acquainted with Banner data, he‘s most excited about Workday’s possibility of providing a fresh start with clean and improved data and reporting tools!
Like many of us whose path to SOU was not exactly direct, Joe worked as a professional river guide for three years before beginning his career in data.
Karen Stone
All Around Lead
Karen is the Associate VP for Academic Resource Management. She’s involved in the Academic Foundations, Curriculum and Advising, and Reporting teams.
Karen started at SOU in 2000 teaching biology. A highly organized person, she’s anticipating the advantages Workday will offer us by consolidating systems. When asked for a fun fact about herself, Karen told us, "I love to use my creativity to build functional things."
Lisa Denney
Co-Lead for Integrations, Security, Reports, Data Conversion
Lisa is an Information Systems Manager and has been at SOU since 1990.
Julie McClendon
Data Conversion Lead
Julie is a Programmer/Analyst for the Information Services team in IT. She‘s worked at SOU since the first day of Fall term 1999. Besides serving as the Data Conversion team lead, Julie participates in most of the other team meetings to share her expertise and deep knowledge of campus systems. She’s intrigued to learn all she can about how how the different areas of Workday Student work with SOU’s data.
Finding herself with free time after completing her masters degree in 2005, she started playing video games. Soon after getting her PlayStation PSP, she was invited to be part of a Sony PlayStation Gamer Advisory Panel. She says that even though that group no longer exists, the friendships remain along with her love for role playing games (RPGs).
Karinda Decker
Financial Aid Lead
Karinda serves as SOU’s Director of Financial Aid. She has worked at SOU since January 2015.
With Workday, Karinda looks forward to more functionality and automation, less manual work, and a more concise system for all to use. Instead of having to use multiple systems or sending students to multiple websites, most everything should be done in Workday in the future and that’s exciting!
Karinda began her career in Financial Aid as a student worker at the University of Oregon because she thought it would be fun to help other students submit their FAFSA. After a few months, she got deeper in financial aid and figured out, this is what she wanted to do! Two weeks after graduation, she started working at SOU as a Financial Aid Counselor. For Karinda, coming to work at SOU was a true homecoming as the campus was home to her during her childhood. Her mom graduated from SOU and Karinda lived in Student Family Housing when she was attending, Karinda even attended kindergarten at SOU! So while she‘s only worked at SOU since 2015, she’s spent a lot of her life on this campus and Financial Aid brought her back. ☺️
Besides leading Financial Aid, Karinda is working with Student Finances, Reporting, and Academic Foundations work streams.
Stephanie Hanigan
Student Financials Lead
Stephanie is the Associate Director for Business Services & Bursar for Southern Oregon University. She joined SOU in January of 2015, just 3 weeks after Karinda Decker, as the Scholarship Coordinator and Compliance Officer for the Office of Financial Aid. In April of 2018, Stephanie added the role of VA School Certifying Official to her position. In March of 2022, Stephanie moved into her current role, shifting to the Business Services component of the university from the Enrollment sector.
Stephanie and her wife, Britt, moved to Oregon by way of Arizona but they are originally from Connecticut. Stephanie and Britt are proud moms to their now 15-year-old American Staffordshire Terrier, Gia (the prettiest pitbull the world!), and their 10 chickens: Mama June, Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, Peaches, Cream, Salt, Pepa, and Girlfriend (because she loves Britt the most!). What drew Stephanie to Oregon was to support Britt‘s dream career of working in law enforcement and now Stephanie is the proud wife and #1 supporter of the Sergeant of Oregon State Police’s Fish & Wildlife’s Southwest Division! In her spare time, Stephanie can be found in the gym/kitchen/pool, helping to tend their 1 acre property, watching sports (especially if they involve the NY Mets or NY Giants), traveling, or tapping back into her creative side that she has allowed to go dormant for far too long!
Stephanie is excited by the ease of information access Workday can provide as well as the automated tasks that can be scheduled through rule creation. She is motivated by the ability to navigate the Workday system to locate, and if necessary, translate information for campus-partners and students alike. Stephanie finds the transformative properties that Workday has to offer encouraging as they can not only offer flexibility in previously rigid processes, but also simplified connection points throughout the software that the legacy system does not offer. In addition to leading the Student Financials conversion, Stephanie is also involved in the Reporting work team.
Stephanie was also the lead for the Phase 1, Banking and Settlement, Workday implementation which has provided her with a solid foundation on which to build the success of Student Financials in Phase 2.
Zac Olson
Recruiting & Admissions Lead
Zac serves as SOU‘s Executive Director of Admissions and Recruitment. He’s been at SOU since 2007 and is counting on Workday to provide a better student experience. Zac says he loves puppies, birthdays, and babies.
Matt Stillman
Academic Foundations Co-Lead
Matt Stillman is the University Registrar and Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management. He’s worked at SOU since 2002.
Matt is looking forward to Workday providing a modern system, better student experience, and streamlined processes.
A fun fact about Matt is that he and his wife met freshman year at SOU and have been together ever since.
In addition to leading the Academic Foundations efforts, Matt is also engaged with the Records, Reporting, and Curriculum and Advising work streams.
Angelyn Pratchios Gay
Change Management Lead
Angelyn is the Coordinator of Library Student Support Services, which means she manages both the Tutoring Center and the Library Tech Help Desk, and supervises more than 20 student employees who work in both spaces. She feels honored that she gets to interact directly with our wonderful students and help them develop their professional skills in a supportive environment.
Angelyn first became a member of the SOU community back in 2014 when her husband Andrew was hired for a one year faculty position. They packed their life, two kids, and their dogs into a U-Haul and drove the 3,000 miles from Orlando, Florida to Ashland—getting the partial Oregon Trail experience along the way by having their U-Haul break down, and later getting robbed (thankfully they did not get dysentery)! Inauspicious beginning aside, they love it here and feel that it has been a great place to grow some roots. According to Angelyn, "I finally joined the family business in 2023 and I feel that I’m right where I belong."
Angelyn’s counting on Workday to automate some processes that have previously been done manually at great effort by dedicated staff and faculty, and for making Workday friends-- she says it turns out learning and implementing new systems is quite the bonding activity!
Angelyn and her children were babywearing models back in the day (Andrew was their photographer), and she enjoys playing the Autoharp (after a fashion!).
Alisha Higley
Records Lead
Alisha is Associate Registrar and Associate Director of Raider Student Services. She started at SOU in 2015 as an Enrollment Services Associate and two years later took on the Customer Service Manager role for the Enrollment Services Center (now Raider Student Services). She has been in her current role since 2019. Besides serving as the Records Lead, Alisha is also involved with the Academic Foundations, Curriculum and Advising, and Student Finance teams.
Alisha is very involved in our regional association, the Pacific Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. She’s currently serving as the Vice President for Professional Development.
Looking forward to Workday, she’s most enthusiastic for students to be able to manage their own FERPA releases.
Alisha works out five days a week and has placed twice in the last three challenges at her gym. She can be quite competitive! She also tells us that she’s a Reiki practitioner who loves all things woo woo.
Hart Wilson
Project Manager
Hart took on the role of Project Manager for the CISR project spring term 2024. An instructional designer in SOU’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, she taught project management for the School of Business from 2002-2019. She started at SOU with a quarter-time position in 1999 coordinating a cohort of Master in Management students in Klamath Falls. Besides shepherding the CISR team through the adoption of Workday Student, she’s our campus Moodle administrator and is happiest when Moodling.
Hart sees the project as an opportunity to transform how we work and provide more streamlined processes. She’s excited about the opportunity for learning that the project represents.
Prior to coming to SOU, Hart taught high school French, worked in the fair industry (yes, it‘s a thing!), helped market the Cleveland Cavaliers, and co-owned a vineyard and winery operation in NE Ohio. She was raised in the Rogue Valley and attended Eagle Point schools all the way from first grade through graduation. She lives on the ranch where she grew up with her mom, brother, and the latest standard poodle in a series that began with her mom’s first poodle in 1945.