The appointment of Mary George Opperman as associate vice president for human resources at Cornell University has been announced by Senior Vice President Frederick A. Rogers. She will assume her new position July 15.

Opperman comes to Cornell from Harvard University, where since 1983 she has served in roles of increasing responsibility. In her current position as director of employee services, employment and training, Opperman manages all aspects of staff relations, strategic planning and policy development, longer service benefits, and work/family and special programs functions.

"I am delighted that Mary George Opperman has agreed to assume this important post at Cornell," Rogers said. "Her wide range of experience at Harvard, which involved all aspects of human resources activities, including labor relations, benefits planning and implementation, compensation and professional training, has given her special expertise in the development of a comprehensive human resources program.

"Ms. Opperman joins Cornell at an especially challenging time, during which the university has undertaken Project 2000, which is a major 'reengineering' of administrative and academic units and a complete overhaul of its administrative technological systems," Rogers added. "She will oversee the continuing redesign of the office of University Human Resources Services to improve cost-effective services, to facilitate delivery of employee benefits, and to implement a total compensation strategy. I look forward to working with her as part of Cornell's senior management team."

In her associate vice president position at Cornell, Opperman will report to Rogers and be responsible for benefits planning and administration for faculty and staff, professional and leadership development for supervisory staff, for compensation, employment, employee and labor relations for non-academic staff, and for work and family issues, an integrated faculty/staff health program, human resource communications and human resource information systems. With an operating budget of $2.1 million, Cornell's human resources division includes eight managers/directors and 60 support personnel.

"Mary Opperman will be leading a strong team of dedicated human resource professionals," said Joycelyn R. Hart, current acting associate vice president for human resources. "I am fully confident that under Ms. Opperman's leadership University Human Resources Services will be able to meet the challenges ahead."

Before joining Harvard's Office of Human Resources as staff relations representative in 1983, Opperman was a field service representative in the marketing division of National Employers Council in Syracuse, N.Y., from 1981 to 1983, and before that was an associate planner in the Oneida County Office for the Aging in Utica, N.Y.

A native of Clinton, N.Y., she earned a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 1980.

Opperman has served on the board of directors of the Peabody Terrace Children's Center in Cambridge, the Sacred Heart School Board, and Employment Resources Inc., a non-profit organization that assists disadvantaged individuals in returning to the workplace. She is also a member of professional organizations, including the College & University Personnel Association, the National Association of Female Executives and the Society for Human Resource Management.