All Members Community

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

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Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
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Hi Mary,

I'm from University of Louisville.  I'm an assistant director and I do not have a PhD.  I've been working in sequencing cores/pharmacogenomic lab for about 20 years and have been promoted along the way to make it where I am now. While I've only helped recruit one director and cannot speak for the entirety of our community, there certainly is a stigma in our university that the Director level should be a PhD, however that has not and is not always the case.  The assistant directors (not many here) that I know are not PhD's.  All of the current directors that I know are.  I'm eager for that tradition to change! 

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Elizabeth Hudson
University of Louisville
Louisville KY
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Mary,

I work in a state university system (w/ 12 universities as part of the SUS in FL). Our Cores are decentralized and under the purview of each Department head with minimal control from the VP-Research.

We have three categories for Core staff. We all are classified as 12-month specialized faculty (cf. 9-month faculty). Our titles are not fancy: Asst in Research, Assoc. in Research, and Senior Research Associate. All of these require minimally a master's level education and/or training. Level I and II provide 2-year contract with renewal or non-renewal decided after the first year. The Level III provides 4-year contract with renewal or non-renewal decided after second year.

One is eligible for promotion after minimum of 5-years of service with at least 15% increase in salary to second or third level respectively. We submit a binder similar to f9-month faculty, and it is evaluated at the departmental and dean's level before each promotion. There are no guaranteed yearly raises but are negotiated (2% is common) as part of collective bargaining unit with 9-month faculty (Professors, Assoc Prof. etc.,)

Here is a link to our Job Specification (use "faculty" filter): JobClassSpec (9167AS, 9168AS, 9165AS)

Let me know if you need information. Thanks.

------------------------------
Thayumanasamy Somasundaram
Director
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Hi Mary,
At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, if the managers have either a higher degree or extensive experience, we promote them to technical director roles, with the overseeing faculty being the scientific director. If the manager has a PhD, we also add assistant and associate research professor appointments in the mix to increase the number of promotions and thus talent retention. This also helps with a succession plan in case the scientific director has their research program and decides to step down from the core responsibility. All of this depends on the core manager's performance, reflective of their dedication to the core services, staff training, and personnel management.
I hope this helps. If you want to discuss further, I can meet with you in a few weeks. September is the budget month at Sinai and hence a little too busy.
Thanks,
Shekhar

Shekhar Patil, PhD
Senior Director, Shared Research Resources and Core Administration
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Email: Shekhar.Patil@mssm.edu
Phone: (212) 241-0704


Original Message:
Sent: 9/8/2025 3:51:00 PM
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Hi Mary,

 All of our core directors are staff. We do have assistant director positions as an option, but realistically that need is only there for our larger cores. Our microscopy and flow cores, for example, are one or two staff cores, and will probably never have the staffing to justify an assistant director position. Our staff go through assistant-associate-senior scientist, then assistant director if the staff load justifies it, then core director. From there, there isn't much room to move further. I have two directors who have moved into partial administrative positions (as overarching coordinators), but those positions are few, and I don't really see that as a viable career path for most people.

------------------------------
Natasha Nikolaidis
Associate Director of Operations
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Hi Mary,

Duke doesn't have core specific job titles, so the ones we use are the same as a research lab and those are Research Tech (II and III), Research Analyst (I, II and Senior), Associate research laboratory manager, and Scientific/research laboratory manager.  Technically, my title is associate research laboratory manager, but in practice my director refers to be as the assistant director, because it what makes sense in other peoples' eyes, but it's a title that doesn't actually exist.  While a PhD isn't required to be a Director (as least I don't think it's required), it tends to be the case, with Directors having Professor titles.  I don't have a PhD and I think I've hit my limit in moving up.

------------------------------
Karen Abramson
Assistant Director
Duke University Medical Center
Durham NC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Thank you very much for the feedback everyone! This is going to be extremely helpful as we start modifying job families and outlining career progression for core staff at MSU. 

Mary

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

We created a core-specific job family at my institution in 2023.  For context, we are an independent research institution with centralized cores, and all core directors are staff.  The goal was to create career pathways and recognize the skills unique to core facilities; thus, the base education qualification for most, but not all, positions is a bachelor's degree.  I've attached the full family with their full qualifications criteria, but here is the list. All are exempt positions, except Core Technician. I'm working on one more non-exempt position that will have high school or equivalent as its base education qualification for undergraduates who need to transition from intern to staff.

Core Director I-II-III
Associate Core Director (for larger cores; no levels, but want to add them)
Core Laboratory Manager I-II-III
Core Project Manager I-II-III
Core Administrator I-II-III
Core Bioinformatics Scientist I-II-III
Core Bioinformatics Analyst I-II-III
Core Biostatistician I-II-III
Core Scientist I-II-III
Core Associate I-II-III
Core Technician I-II-III (non-exempt)

------------------------------
Mary Winn, PhD
Associate Director
Core Technologies and Services
Van Andel Institute
Grand Rapids, MI
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2025 11:13
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Thank you very much for the feedback everyone! This is going to be extremely helpful as we start modifying job families and outlining career progression for core staff at MSU. 

Mary

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
Montana State University
Bozeman MT

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/11/2025 11:46:00 AM
From: Mary Winn
Subject: RE: Facility Manager Career Progression

We created a core-specific job family at my institution in 2023.  For context, we are an independent research institution with centralized cores, and all core directors are staff.  The goal was to create career pathways and recognize the skills unique to core facilities; thus, the base education qualification for most, but not all, positions is a bachelor's degree.  I've attached the full family with their full qualifications criteria, but here is the list. All are exempt positions, except Core Technician. I'm working on one more non-exempt position that will have high school or equivalent as its base education qualification for undergraduates who need to transition from intern to staff.

Core Director I-II-III
Associate Core Director (for larger cores; no levels, but want to add them)
Core Laboratory Manager I-II-III
Core Project Manager I-II-III
Core Administrator I-II-III
Core Bioinformatics Scientist I-II-III
Core Bioinformatics Analyst I-II-III
Core Biostatistician I-II-III
Core Scientist I-II-III
Core Associate I-II-III
Core Technician I-II-III (non-exempt)

------------------------------
Mary Winn, PhD
Associate Director
Core Technologies and Services
Van Andel Institute
Grand Rapids, MI
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2025 11:13
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Thank you very much for the feedback everyone! This is going to be extremely helpful as we start modifying job families and outlining career progression for core staff at MSU. 

Mary

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
Montana State University
Bozeman MT

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 15:50
From: Mary Gauvin
Subject: Facility Manager Career Progression

Hi all,

   I am hoping that a few of you could share what your institution's career progression looks like for core facility managers. Do you ever have a title change? And is there ever any jump into "assistant director" positions, or do you keep the director title (and variants) for faculty only? Thanks for your input! 

------------------------------
Mary Gauvin
RED Service Centers Director - Core Facilities
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
------------------------------