Gift from Alumnus James M. Kilts Establishes Booth's First Named Clinical Professorship in Marketing

Few alumni have championed business scholarship and education at Chicago Booth more than James M. Kilts, ’74. Of the numerous ways he has supported the school over the years, the most notable may be his foundational gift to establish the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing in 1999, and his forging of the partnership between Nielsen and the Kilts Center to establish a repository of invaluable consumer data that has enabled pathbreaking scholarship in marketing for two decades.

Now, Kilts has continued his remarkable support of the school by providing a generous gift to establish the James M. Kilts Jr. Clinical Professorship in Marketing, Booth’s first named clinical professorship in marketing.

Reflecting on his relationship with the school, Kilts says, “I feel greatly indebted to Booth for the terrific education I received there.” On establishing the professorship, which is named for his son, he notes, “I want to ensure the school continues to attract top educators for future generations of business students. Clinical faculty, especially, can help bridge the gap between what our students learn in class and its practical applications in the business world.”

The professorship’s inaugural recipient is a man who has indeed bridged the gap between the classroom and the business world and who also helped position the Kilts Center at the vanguard of marketing scholarship and innovation: professor Art Middlebrooks.

On receiving the named professorship, Middlebrooks says, “The Kilts clinical professorship is such an incredible honor, and it means the world to me! I treasure my 30 years in the classroom with Booth students, where the students have challenged me and changed me for the better. It is especially meaningful that the Kilts clinical professorship is in Jim Kilts Jr.’s, ’09, name. Jim took two of my classes, and after graduating he ‘paid it forward’ by sponsoring multiple projects in my New Product Development Lab course.”

Advancing Marketing Scholarship

The named professorship is a fitting accolade for Middlebrooks, who helped establish the Kilts Center’s preeminence in the marketing field soon after its inception. A few years after the center was founded, he stepped in as executive director, a role he held until 2023, and made several strategic changes that propelled the center to its status as a top destination for marketing scholars and students worldwide.

During his tenure, Middlebrooks was instrumental in building out the Kilts Center’s data archive, which has been curating and sharing consumer data with marketing scholars for the past 19 years. To date, the collection consists of 13 datasets from 10 different providers. It boasts over 2,000 users at more than 200 institutions and has driven research in more than 1,000 academic papers. By making the data available and accessible to scholars across the country, the Kilts Center has helped advance scholarship in the marketing field as a whole.

Beyond presiding over the Kilts Center’s valuable data repository, Middlebrooks was also prescient in building the center’s product development programming, responding to a rise in student interest in product-related jobs in the tech industry. His investment in product development helped usher in a transition in marketing education at Booth. Moreover, Middlebrooks’s savvy networking and relationship building have helped the Kilts Center make an impact on the Booth community by engaging marketing-minded alumni over the years.

A Beloved Educator

Though he is no longer the executive director of the Kilts Center, Middlebrooks remains closely involved with the center and continues to be an enormously popular instructor at the school.

“Art is beloved by the institution,” says Katie Claussen Bell, ’23, the current executive director at the Kilts Center. “His New Product Development course, which he created and has been teaching for the last 25 years, is always popular with students. Countless students come back from their first-year internships and full-time jobs raving about how much frameworks from the course have helped them.”

“He is thorough, always prepared, and he is unflappable as a leader. He is such an amazing asset to Booth,” Claussen Bell adds.

Although Middlebrooks deserves much credit for all he has done to advance the study of marketing at Booth, he is more eager to direct praise toward his longtime mentor and friend, James M. Kilts.

“Jim Kilts has supported the Booth marketing community for decades in countless ways,” Middlebrooks says. “As a result, Booth has attracted the best marketing faculty and has become the premier destination for MBA students who want to study marketing and pursue marketing careers. In my 17 years with the Kilts Center, Jim has actively advanced every area of the center and mentored me personally along the way. His impact on the marketing community at Booth will be felt for years to come.”