The Arts, Sciences & Engineering (AS&E) faculty voted yesterday to restrict teachers' access to student transcripts, addressing concerns about privacy violations and legality raised by the current access policy.
Every faculty member serving as an advisor has had unrestricted access to all students' transcripts and confidential records since Tufts put student records online with the Student Information System (SIS) years ago.
Concerns about the broad access policy gained visibility last fall when the Tufts Community Union Senate Educational Policy Committee (EPC) drafted a resolution to limit faculty access to records. Yesterday's faculty vote was the final step in making the policy effective. The ruling will be implemented in the coming weeks.
"The Registrar's Office and Dowling Tech team will meet over the next couple of weeks ... to accommodate the changes in [SIS] policy," Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser told the Daily.
Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said at the meeting that faculty members' unfettered access to student records twice escalated into extreme situations roughly six years ago. In one instance, the university had to pay to change the names and Social Security numbers of the family of a student whose privacy had been breached.
In the second case, the university paid "to move the student's family to shield them from potential harm," Glaser said. The family had to be moved across state lines.
"About six years ago, some information got out by mishap," Reitman told the Daily. "The university did everything it could to correct that." Reitman would not go into further detail about either case.
The new policy will retain faculty access to student records in three circumstances. Advisors will have access to the records of their advisees, department administrators will have access to the records of the students within their major, and deans and department chairs will maintain full access to all students' records.
The EPC resolution was highly debated in yesterday's AS&E faculty meeting, where the final vote was cast. The vote was split, with 19 in favor and nine opposed.
Before voting on the resolution, the faculty debated and failed an amendment to alter the new proposal. This amendment, sponsored by Associate Professor of Sociology James Ennis, sought to allow faculty members to view the transcripts of students "whom they advise, instruct, evaluate or recommend."
The intent of the amendment was to "broaden the proposed wording to include instructors," Ennis said. He felt that the original proposal did not consider some important relationships between professors and students, including unofficial advising and recommendation writing.
One of the primary arguments made at the meeting in support of the more restrictive SIS privacy resolution that eventually passed was that the current policy violates the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). "The fact that we were out of compliance with federal law was very compelling," Glaser said.
Tufts' Senior Counsel Dickens Mathieu said the present policy was in gross violation of FERPA, and that Ennis's amendment was ill advised. "Allowing access - open access - to all students who professors instruct and evaluate would be a violation," he said.
"I see my role as trying to protect the university from having a policy of practice that violates [federal statutes]," Mathieu said. "You need permission to share or disclose information about student records."
Because current access policy violates FERPA, Tufts is at risk for lawsuits, Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg said.
A second concern was the potential for abuse of students' confidentiality under the current system. In the past, there have been various cases in which student privacy was inappropriately handled, Sternberg said.
Faculty also addressed students' attitudes toward the faculty's access to their transcripts. "The impression of what we do is important, not only in terms of compliance but symbolically," Reitman said.
In the past, students have been accused of academic dishonesty because of assumptions professors made about their academic ability after looking at the students' transcripts, Reitman said.
The faculty agreed that teachers should have access to a student's records if they obtain student permission. One main concern about the resolution was that the current SIS configuration does not allow students to submit electronic versions of their transcripts directly to faculty members. When the system changes to prevent faculty members from accessing all students' records, the student would have to provide a paper copy of the transcript.
Revisions to this aspect of SIS have been discussed, but no definite plans have been made. "We will look at ways to make it possible for students to easily transmit their transcripts," Glaser said.
Tufts' policy of unrestricted access to student transcripts is unlike the policies of similar institutions. Amherst, Boston and Wellesley Colleges, Boston, Brandeis, Dartmouth and Harvard Universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all restrict access to student records.
"Even the new policy that we are putting forward is broader than any of our peers," Glaser said during the meeting.
