Chancellor’s assistant retires; successor named

With 30 years of university service — a dozen of those as assistant to three UW–Madison chancellors — Maria Justiliano will retire Friday, June 14.

Debra Lauder, assistant to athletic director Pat Richter, will return to the position she held from January 1988 until December 1991 in Donna Shalala’s administration.

“Deb brings a great deal of administrative experience to this position,” says Casey Nagy, the chancellor’s chief of staff. “I am grateful that she is willing to quickly step into this position. It is quite difficult to replace a person like Maria Justiliano, who has made such an enormous contribution to the operation of this office and to the entire university.”

Lauder left the chancellor’s office in 1991 to take a similar position with the University of Idaho president’s office. She returned to UW–Madison in 1992 to become an educational services assistant in the Office of Legal and Executive Affairs, before moving to the Athletic Department in March 1998.

The assistant to the chancellor provides direct support to the chancellor and his immediate staff, and oversees the office’s support staff and student assistants.

Lauder’s first day in the chancellor’s office is Monday, June 10. Her annual salary will be $57,792.

Justiliano was Lauder’s replacement as assistant to Shalala in 1991. She also served in the David Ward administration. Prior to that, Justiliano held similar positions in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences; the Medical School Dean’s Office; the Medical School departments of Medical Physics, Medical Genetics and Anatomy; and Memorial Library.

Carole Zuege, currently an athletics program assistant, takes over Lauder’s post in athletics.

Justiliano came to the campus 50 years ago, as a seventh-grader at the university’s Wisconsin High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in library and information studies from UW–Madison.