Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA)

Release of Student Information

This diagram is designed to help you ask the right questions about the release of student information.

Information for Faculty/Staff

This brochure and Powerpoint Presentation have information for faculty and staff about FERPA.

Directory Information

Directory information, which can be released upon any legitimate request without the student's permission, consists of:

• student name;
• home and school addresses, telephone numbers;
• e-mail address;
• month and day of birth;
• place of birth;
• country of citizenship;
• field of study;
• school of enrollment;
• full/part-time status;
• evel (graduate, undergraduate, etc) and year in school;
• participation in officially-recognized activities and sports;
• weight and height of members of athletic teams;
• dates of attendance;
• candidacy for degree;
• degrees, honors, scholarships, and awards received;
• most recent previous educational institution attended;
• names of parents or guardians.

All other information not specifically listed, including grades, courses, days and times of course meetings, withdrawals, suspensions, and age, cannot be disclosed without the student's permission. Faculty have access to student I.D numbers, class rosters, and grades as part of their academic activities, and are obligated to maintain the confidentiality of that information at all times.

Privacy Flags

If you have direct access to ISIS, you may occasionally encounter a record with the notation "Do Not Release Information" on the bottom of the screen. Students have the right to restrict the disclosure of directory information, and for those who do so, no information whatsoever can be released without written permission. Students can establish a privacy flag by writing to the registrar or the Vice President for Student Affairs.

To obtain non-directory information on a student, University employees must have a legitimate educational interest, requiring the student's records in the course of performing instructional, supervisory, advisory, or administrative duties for the University. The selection of students to officially recognized honor societies, periodicals, and other activities which recognize or encourage superior academic achievement is a legitimate educational interest.

If, for example, you want to review a student's complete transcript to assist in the writing of a letter of recommendation, we consider that a legitimate educational interest and will provide you with a copy. If, however, you want only to see how the student has done in other courses before you assign a grade, we will not consider that a legitimate request.

Release of Information Over the Telephone

You may discuss a student's record over the telephone only with the student and only if you are certain that it is the student with whom you are speaking.

Speaking with the student's parents is more problematic. Non-directory information about a dependent student (defined usually as an undergraduate) may be discussed with whomever that student lists as next of kin. Unless you have access to the database, however, it is impossible to know whether a student has listed the father or the mother (or both) as legal next of kin. It is best to avoid discussing a student's record with anyone other than the student, unless you have the student's permission to do so.

Posting Grades in Public

As convenient as it may be to post photocopies of grade sheets on your office door or leave boxes of graded papers in a box in the hall, you should not do so. Students at other universities have sued over these practices—and have won. Even if you obscure the students' names and identification numbers on a grade listing, a student who knows where names fall in the order of the course roll could discern other students' grades.

With the implementation of ISIS, students can check their final grades by logging on to ISIS Online. If you want to post test or mid-session grades (grades which are not on ISIS), you may do so by using a random-order listing of your own devising. Some instructors, for example, assign each student a blind grading number while others sort their list by the final four digits of the I.D. number. There is no guaranteed safe way to return papers or reports other than to hand them back in class or deposit them in students' mailboxes (for those departments that have individual student boxes). We do not recommend posting grades in any public manner.