Mission of Kellogg Information Systems

Our goal is to help enhance management education through the use of technology, utilizing the unique Kellogg culture to our competitive advantage. We believe that the right utilization of technology is critical to the success of Kellogg students in becoming world-class managers, to Kellogg faculty in maximizing their teaching impact and producing world-class research, and to Kellogg administrators in providing excellent service and effectively managing the school.

Organization of Kellogg Information Systems

We are organized into the following functional groups to better focus on our customers and allow more specialization: Student Computing, Faculty/Staff Computing, Network Systems, Application Development, and Research Computing.  Our staff consists of about 25 full-time professionals, and is leveraged with a substantial number of part-time Northwestern undergraduate students.  See our Organization Chart and Staff Contacts for more information.

Key Strategies and Values for Utilizing Technology at Kellogg

• Drive technology from business strategy and customer needs
• Create a sound, open, integrated, and forward-looking technical infrastructure
• Utilize Northwestern University technology standards and computing resources where advantageous to us
• Seek a wide range of constituent input and weigh the differing input carefully
• Team with school-wide staff to deliver technology-based services
• Develop “people-oriented technologists” within the information systems group
• Initiate continuous enhancements in response to evolving needs
• Focus on investments to create the most value- added for the majority of people
• Strive to maximize benefit to the school as a whole, given user needs, technical demands, and limited resources
• Establish policies to limit individual choice where appropriate to benefit the school as a whole
• Consider competing priorities in the broadest possible context.

We serve a variety of important constituent groups within the Kellogg community, including: 1,200 full time students; 1,500 evening students; 400 executive masters program students;  4,000 yearly executive education participants and 300 faculty and staff members.  In addition thousands of alumni, prospective students, and employers, worldwide, have become direct constituents in recent years.  While we seek to provide similar facilities, systems, and services to these groups, the specific needs of our constituent groups often requires us to provide several variations.

Consistent with Kellogg’s team-oriented culture, many groups in the community play an important role in Kellogg’s successful use of technology:

• The dean, associate deans, and department heads play a critical role in identifying needs and weighing priorities.
• Staff throughout the school create and update web sites, plan for new administrative applications, input and retrieve data, and provide feedback on how systems are working.
• Many student groups provide feedback on computing services and systems, generate a wide variety of ideas for new initiatives, help to prioritize student ideas, and assist in delivering student training.
• Faculty committees provide input on computing for both instruction and research and serve as liaisons back to faculty in their departments.
• Finally, the Kellogg advisory boards provide important perspective from the business community.

Overview of Technology Infrastructure for Students

Kellogg’s robust technology infrastructure enables students to incorporate technology into their coursework and student activities, thereby learning skills that will be critical to success in management.

In Conclusion

Kellogg continually strives to respond to market demands and customer needs.  Technology moves fast, and we position ourselves to be ready to move strategically in response to future technical trends, new business developments, and the changing skills of students.  We have a sound, open, forward-looking technology infrastructure and are prepared to make significant investments over time.  Based on our careful attention to strategy, customer need, cultural fit, and other factors mentioned above, Kellogg is positioned to leverage technology to truly enhance management education at Kellogg.

Please e-mail David Keown , Assistant Dean for Information Technology, with your input and comments.