The PID Office, located in the Daniels Building basement of Student Stores, issues personal ID numbers (PIDs) for students, faculty and staff and qualified affiliates who have a relationship with the university. This nine-digit number is unique to each employee as a form of record keeping at UNC-Chapel Hill, superseding all other personal numbers. The PID Office is responsible for the PID creation, modification and authentication of all PID numbers on campus. They also update various data, most frequently: name, address or social security number changes.
We asked Melinda Bakken, Director of Campus Card Services, to help us learn more about what they do and how we serve them.
How many PIDs do you estimate your department processes in a year?
We interact with the PID and bio/demo data in a lot of different ways. There are currently more than 1 million PIDs in Connect Carolina and we process more than 5,000 suspended applications per year as well as 5,000 affiliates. We worked hard with many places on campus, in particular ITS in order to reduce our PID duplicates. This resulted in a drop from more than 6,000 duplicates in the system to under 600 per year.
How many staff members do you have?
Besides myself, there are three full-time employees.
Is there anything you particularly like to work with SCE on, or wish could be improved upon?
We have been happy with the IT and Communications services that we receive. IT has always been helpful with our issues and fixing our machines and Communications was helpful in working with our web presence.
What’s your favorite part about your job?
We get to work with everyone: students, affiliates, employees, Friday Center and hospital staff.
Is there anything about you personally that most people don’t know, or a fun fact from your past?
I’m an open book … I’m not sure there is a whole lot I haven’t shared. With Jim Clinton retiring, I have taken over One Card Operations. I am half Chinese/ Half (English, Irish and Welch). I am a military brat and I love to talk (ask anyone)!