At Van Andel Institute, our core directors are staff. Only our program director is a research faculty member.
It was a long process with HR, but we now have a core job family that supports career growth within a position (e.g., Core Director I-II-II) and across positions (e.g., Core Laboratory Manager I-II-III -> Associate Core Director I-II-III -> Core Director I-II-III). All positions within the job family leave room for experience over degrees. Like Dartmouth, the opportunities for advancing to core director are generally limited due to low turnover as well as core size. For all other staff, new positions are also often limited by turnover, but opportunities for promotion and career development are available.
For core directors at VAI, the landscape has changed as follows:
- Prior to 2019: cores were primarily led by Core Managers, with a few exceptions
- 2019 - 2022: developed a Core Director position; promoted 2 core managers to Core Director
- 2022: replaced the Core Manager/Director track with Core Director I-II-III; shifted all core managers to Core Director I and all Core Directors to Core Director II.
Since it has been discussed, while many of our directors do have PhDs, because the descriptions were originally written as such, we now have core directors with a range of degrees, including BS, BA, MBA, and MS. Some of our core directors, and some staff, also hold non-research faculty positions in the Van Andel Institute Graduate School.
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Mary Winn, PhD
Associate Director
Core Technologies and Services
Van Andel Institute
Grand Rapids, MI
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