Leadership and Management in Core Facilities

How to meet the unique challenges of operating in a university setting

Running a core facility successfully requires both a strong set of business management skills and deep insights into the nuances of leadership in a university setting. This four-day executive learning experience focuses specifically on helping you enhance your business and management skills and developing the leadership capacity to run your operation more effectively.

In this hands-on program, you’ll expand your knowledge and learn new approaches to leadership as you practice applying them to a challenge in your own organization. You’ll develop a team orientation that will enable you to engage your teams more effectively. You’ll leave this program with a deep understanding of your individual strengths and how to leverage them to meet difficult challenges and seize new opportunities.

Center for Nonprofit Management

Grow your ability to master the competitive landscape

SAVE THIS PROGRAM

Who Should Attend

  • Directors, managers and business administrators overseeing university or nonprofit core facilities

Key Benefits

  • Understand key management concepts including leadership, finance, pricing strategies, marketing and others
  • Learn to think strategically about your facility and identify important concepts you can apply to build the organization, increase stability and enhance growth
  • Build a network of peers and mentors to support continued professional growth and development
  • Acquire new knowledge and skills for strengthening your organization’s capacity to meet the challenges of a changing competitive landscape

Program Content

The curriculum will offer a rigorous and research-based classroom learning experience paired with relevant tools and business principles that can be put into practice immediately.

Leadership Topics:

  • Enhancing persuasion and influence skills
  • Leveraging strengths-based leadership
  • Understanding and creating strong organizational culture
  • Leading teams and collaborating for impact

Fiscal Strategy and Management Topics

  • Marketing and consumer behavior
  • Pricing strategies
  • Creating market value

Faculty

Jennifer Paul - Academic Director; Director, Nonprofit Executive Programs, Center for Nonprofit Management, Kellogg School of Management

Gail Berger - Clinical Associate Professor of Management & Organizations; Deputy Director, Center for Executive Women; Associate Professor of Instruction, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, McCormick School of Engineering

Michelle L. Buck - Clinical Professor of Executive Education

Alexander Chernev - Professor of Marketing

Nicholas A. Pearce - Clinical Professor of Management & Organizations

Aaron Rosen - Senior Financial Analyst, Core Facilities Administration, Northwestern University

Aparna Labroo - Professor of Marketing

Accommodations, Fees & Policies

Location

Nonprofit Management Programs are held at Northwestern University's Chicago Campus.

Wieboldt Hall
340 East Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60611
Directions

Chicago Campus Parking Map - Please Note: the Huron Superior Parking A lot and the Erie Ontario Parking C & D lots are available to the public and should be used when attending programs at Wieboldt Hall.

Application Deadline

The deadline for registration is 10:00 am one business day prior to the program start date.

Payment Deadline

  • five business days in advance of the program start date. Your registration will be canceled if we do not hear from you.

Hospitality during the Program

We strive to provide healthy meal choices for our participants for breakfast, lunch and breaks. We typically provide a range of choices, including some vegetarian-friendly and gluten-avoidant selections. We cannot meet all dietary preferences, but we will do our best to accommodate health restrictions, religious restrictions and food allergies.

Accommodations

Participants are responsible for booking their hotel accommodations during their stay in Chicago.

Download Nearby Hotels List

Cancellation Policy:

Participants must notify the Program Manager five business days in advance of the program start date if they are unable to attend. Otherwise, participants will be charged 20% of the stated program fees.

When canceling a program registration, participants may choose to rollover their payment to a future program or receive a refund. Participants are allowed two rollovers, after the second rollover, participants forfeit the money paid to the Center for Nonprofit Management.

*Refund or rollover must be requested at the time of the program cancellation. Once a program payment has been rolled over, a monetary refund is no longer an option. The participant must continue with the rollover process.


What Participants Say

“Today’s Core Directors are experts in their fields with years of formal training and research experience. However, few have had formal training on marketing, management and leadership. Skills in these areas are not innate and can be taught. Just as I would go to a Core Director when seeking assistance with a scientific technique, I go to Kellogg instructors to improve my performance in these areas. The Kellogg Management Class for Core Director’s teaches technical experts how to view their work as value added vs a cost, how to generate buy in from staff, collaborators and customers and how to change strategies when teams are not performing at optimum levels. I would recommend to any person with a technical background that works in a small business or core facility.”
Director, IMSERC; Director of Core Facilities at Northwestern

“I personally learned the values of better leadership and the means to build a successful team and facility which will be useful for the rest of my career. I highly recommend the course for new leaders and leaders running nonprofit labs/cores, and especially for those having difficulties with leadership, having to face the challenges of creating new services, and being exposed to outside competition.”
Research Associate Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

“Attending the Kellogg course was a superb experience. The instructors were excellent speakers and very engaging, while my fellow students were friendly, asked insightful questions, and participated enthusiastically in discussions in and out of class. The course introduced many topics relevant to my work, in particular the topics related to team management and understanding the creation of value. The topics on management and leadership of teams were very relevant, including understanding biases and assumptions especially as they relate to creating an appropriate culture in the workplace. The topics related to value and the value proposition enabled me to better understand who the true customers of our facility are and how to ensure that we create appropriate value for them.”
Director, Northwestern DND-CAT Facility at Argonne National Laboratory

Learn More

Please email or call us if you would like additional information about Nonprofit Programs

2025 Session

June 9-12, 2025

Start: June 9 at 8:00 AM

End: June 12 at 5:00 PM


Format: In-Person on Chicago campus

$5,000

Scholarships are not available

Kellogg School of Management

Kellogg Executive Education
2211 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
Directions
847.467.6018