Personnel Dept history

The Executive Committee of the Corporation had considered the need for such an office as early as 1914, but decided it was not necessary, and non-academic personnel matters remained the responsibility of the Bursar’s Office.

The Personnel Office officially opened on 1 July 1943.

In 1945 the Executive Committee decided to continue the Personnel Office as a permanent division of the Institute’s administration.

In 1946, Ruth C. Glynn, who had managed the office for two years, became the first personnel officer of the Institute.

In June of 1949, as part of a reorganization of the executive branch of government, the newly created General Services Administration (GSA) absorbed the National Archives.

By 1950, the CPRB of the Department of the Army (formerly the War Department), had achieved a good degree of consolidation of its former civilian employee records.

GSA accepted this proposal on April 25, 1951.

However, space shortages continued; and, by 1952, the Army estimated that the DPRB was housing more than 17 million individual records of separated Army and Air Force personnel.

The third group, located at the Naval Records Management Center in Garden City, New York, began its move to the DODMPRC in St Louis in 1956.

In 1958 the office became the Office of Personnel Relations, composed of three divisions with three officers: Personnel Services, Salaried Personnel Relations, and Union Relations.

Construction was completed on a new two story facility in the spring of 1961, at a cost of $5.6 million.

The Personnel Office has reported to one of the offices of the vice president of the Institute since 1962.

In 1963, the office was again reorganized to include an employment office, benefits officers, and training consultants.

By 1966, both the St Louis Federal Records Center and the Military Personnel Records Center had achieved their respective goals of housing and servicing all former civilian and military personnel records.

These changes, and the appointment of tuition assistance officers in 1968, reflect efforts on the part of the Institute to use less traditional forms of compensation to attract and retain qualified personnel.

The office underwent significant restructuring in 1973 when it was again named the Personnel Office and divided into three sections, each with its own director who reported to the Institute vice president for administration and personnel, John M. Wynne.

The Personnel Office assumed responsibility for the Office of Child Care in 1985.

In 1990 the Office of Community Services, later named the Office of Special Community Services, was created.

The Office of Special Community Services included such offices as the Child Care Office (renamed the Family Resource Center in 1992), MIT Activities Committee (MITAC), and the MIT-Cambridge Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons.

The Office of Special Community Services was disbanded in July 1994 and the Family Resource Center ceased reporting to the Personnel Office.

With the promotion of Joan F. Rice to vice president for human resources in 1995, her office assumed responsibility for matters of personnel, equal opportunity, family and work, and general management of MIT’s human resources.

As part of the final phase of the project, the NPRC launched an electronic request tracking and reporting system in 2002 that dramatically improved customer service.

As part of the initial transfer, the records of 1.2 million veterans who served with the United States Navy and Marine Corps were opened to the public in July 2005.

In November 2007, NARA opened to the public 6.3 million OMPFs of former military personnel who served in the United States Army (including Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces), Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

In October 2008, NARA opened the first facility in Valmeyer, IL. Known as the NPRC Annex, this new Center is located in a retrofitted limestone cave.