Evolution and current status of university HR programs

Abstract

Current-day university human resource educational programs had their beginnings in the late 1910s and early 1920s when textbooks and courses in personnel management first appeared, an event that occurred in tandem with the emergence of personnel management/industrial relations as a new functional area of business practice. Over the next eight decades, both the practice of HR management and the university programs that train people for it have evolved and grown in a number of important and interesting ways. This article provides a brief overview of this evolution in university HR education, summarizes the structure and curriculum of contemporary HR degree programs, and briefly describes the strengths and weaknesses of HR management as an intellectual subject area. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.