Attendees:

Helene Kelsey          Robin Elices

Olympia Valentine    Magdalena Rieb

Richard Lay              Jack Defandorf

Bernadette Vallely    Nicole Degnan

John Congdon         Ekaterina Trizlova

Michael Leskiw        Elizabeth Lennox

Daniel Delgado

Presenters:

Heather Williams, Assistant Provost for Strategic Projects

Kate Miller, Risk Management and Compliance Services

Expansion of MIT Background Check Program

• Purpose of background checks is to promote a safe learning, working, and research environment.

Currently, MIT conducts backgrounds checks on:

• New hires, transfers, and promotions in select DLCs
• MIT faculty, staff, and students who work with minors
• Certain MIT individuals who drive vehicles (motor vehicle checks)
• As required by state law, MIT has a Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) policy outlining required procedures.

What's a criminal background check:

• CORI convictions (not arrests), Sex Offender Record Information (SORI), and SSN trace
• Goes back 7 years
• Only convictions, not arrests, are considered

Process for conducting background checks: 

• Done through a 3rd party vendor
• All information is confidential with limited MIT staff (only about 8 people currently) privy to the information.
• Adverse findings will not automatically disqualify an applicant from employment, but a MIT Background Check Committee will review and offer a recommendation to the hiring manager.
• Time for background checks will vary depending on whether applicant resides solely in Massachusetts, internationally or in various jurisdictions.

Implementation

• Expansion of background check program

The future program will include the following:

• Criminal background checks for all new hires with paid appointments.
• Require check at the time of promotion to Academic Council (unless previously checked within four years).
• Allow DLCs to perform checks at the point of transfer/promotion with senior leadership approval.
• If a recurring check is needed, the previous check lasts four years.
• This will result in an increase to roughly 2500 - 3000 checks per year.

1. Policy
   1. Policy added to Employment Policy Manual during roll-out phase.
   2. Once roll-out is complete, consider adding policy to P&P; roll-out phased in 6 to 9 months.
2.  Communication
   1. Stakeholder engagement
   2. Adding language to MIT recruiting site for faculty and staff and job postings: need help from all of us as HR administrators to ensure that all sites are updated.
   3. Add language offer letters ("offer is contingent on successful completion of a background check").
3. Training
   1. Expand number of staff
   2. Train HR managers

Proposed Roll-Out Plan

1. New vendor in place by end of AY2023
2. Will begin phased roll-out to perform background check on paid positions, take into consideration when positions were posted AND by personnel category.
3. Background check only on finalists

Q&A:

1. What is the purpose of training for HR managers? 
   1. To train on verbiage required in the job posting and offer letter.
   2. Explanation that HR managers will have no access to background checks.
   3. Whom to contact with questions
2. What is the purpose of the recommendation from the committee who does the background checks?
   1. The committee will provide the HR managers with points to consider. They are rarely going to be recommending a hard "no-hire" recommendation.
3. Who's included in the new background check process?
   1. Intention is MIT employees. NextSource runs the background check for temporary employees.
   2. Students are not included at this stage of expansion.
   3. Expectation is that all postdocs (fellows and associates) are included, but Heather will double check.
4. What about remote, out-of-state employees: Are there other state requirements?
   1. Will probably need to talk to the vendors about this.
5. Will there be background checks for existing employees?
   1. No plan to check current employees except for certain circumstances where re-doing background checks are required.

Other discussed items:

• There was a suggestion that it would be best to have international people have background check at time of visa approval process.
• If someone doesn't pass a background check, should this information be shared centrally somehow with HR? Andrea Finnin could probably track this since there should be a small number of such cases.
• People coming in with visas: Could there be a carve out for those with active visas already since in theory they have already been vetted?
• A comment was made that there should be an official policy to be able to fall back in case of pushback from candidates.
• There have been past community meeting engagements with future AO/HR meetings to come.

Ideas on rollout to Heather and Kate from AACII:

• Should this be done by Schools?
• Or, maybe start with a group like EVPT.
• Rollout of the administrative groups rather than certain groups that may impact faculty? i.e. it would be best to minimize the initial impact to the faculty until the process appears to be working properly.
• Postdoc appointments: Faculty rush on getting someone in, so there was a suggestion that we don't include postdocs on the initial rollout.

Annual Networking Breakfast

• Last year's topic was about DEI and the MIT Strategic Plan

Topic:  Adjusting to a hybrid environment (recruiting, space usage, DEI component)

• What are reasonable accommodations and what can we sustain?
• How do we accommodate both faculty and administrative perspectives?
• Who to invite? Benefit for AOs to interact with; probably invite HR
• Do we need perspectives from faculty or others and not just the administrative perspective of hybrid work?
• In-person breakfast was advocated due to the atmosphere and ability to network
• Kim Medeiros can maybe offer suggestions on spaces
• Timing would depend on spaces, but try to avoid Inauguration, Commencement and April school vacation week should be taken into consideration.