Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) or "The Buckley Amendment"

One of the more difficult and somewhat awkward issues LTSC academic advisors face with students, especially "Millennial" students in more recent years, is involvement of parents in a student's academic life. This is going to be a theme this year, so I want to address issues of privacy as early as possible. As I've outlined in a previous blog entry, we are now working with a generation which has, on the whole, had terrific and close relationships with parents and/or guardians. When these students begin the process of becoming integrated into the world of Higher Education (read " become college students"), experiencing what it's like to live on their own and take care of their own schedules, academic advisors are often caught between assisting their caseload of students in the transitional process and parents who want to be sure their children are on the right path academically.

One sticking point does come up in terms of student privacy rights. In fact, a federal law passed in 1974 forbids higher education administrators from discussing anything in regard to a student's relationship with the University with parents.

We often hear a parent say, "I pay for my son's education. I am entitled to know what's going on."  Or, "This young lady is my daughter, I have a right to know her grades. I want to talk to her advisor about her plans."  In reality, a parent has no rights when it comes to a student who has become a part of a school "beyond the high school level." Note that the law is not specifically tied to age--it is a combination of age and  a student's place of higher learning by which this law applies.

From the government's website: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html:

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.
FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are "eligible students."

• Parents or eligible students have the right to inspect and review the student's education records maintained by the school. Schools are not required to provide copies of records unless, for reasons such as great distance, it is impossible for parents or eligible students to review the records. Schools may charge a fee for copies.
  
• Parents or eligible students have the right to request that a school correct records which they believe to be inaccurate or misleading. If the school decides not to amend the record, the parent or eligible student then has the right to a formal hearing. After the hearing, if the school still decides not to amend the record, the parent or eligible student has the right to place a statement with the record setting forth his or her view about the contested information.
  
• Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):
  
  • School officials with legitimate educational interest;
  • Other schools to which a student is transferring;
  • Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
  • Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
  • Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
  • Accrediting organizations;
  • To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;
  • Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
  • State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.

Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them. Schools must notify parents and eligible students annually of their rights under FERPA. The actual means of notification (special letter, inclusion in a PTA bulletin, student handbook, or newspaper article) is left to the discretion of each school.
For additional information, you may call 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327) (voice). Individuals who use TDD may call 1-800-437-0833.
Or you may contact us at the following address:
Family Policy Compliance Office
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202-8520

NOTE: The law is also referred to as "The Buckley Amendment."

For academic advisors, the law is simple: we can't speak with anyone outside a student about their relationship to advising and/or grades without specific consent from that student. For our students in LTSC who do wish to give consent for a parent or guardian to speak with us about their relationship with our office, those students can complete a "Waiver to Privacy" or "Waiver to the Buckley Amendment" kept in our office. Students must fill these forms out in person when doing so. We do not accept faxed or emailed copies, and we do not allow anyone to pick up a form and take it to a student and return it. Students must fill out the sheet in person. Also, students can set a time limit as to when the waiver kicks in and ceases. We find that many students will fill out the form but only release the information for one day, or as long as it takes for outside involvement with advising to be completed.

We understand parents want to be involved. We're happy about that, and we're experimenting with this blog this semester to give parents more information about what's going on. In a perfect world, advisors also want students to make the transition of becoming responsible for themselves when it comes to academic planning and taking care of advising business in a timely fashion. (It's really not difficult or mysterious.) We want students to be responsible  for themselves. However, if it comes down to a time that parents and students decide they should both be directly involved, be sure your son or daughter understands they must sign over that privacy right before we can have any discussions with parents.  We're happy to assist everyone when that time comes.

Twas the Day Before the Start of Classes...

Well, today I am having our office assistants help prep over 900 letters to be sent out to our students' parents/guardians, giving them information about our office's advising timeline for the semester and inviting parents to be involved in a project for the fall semester I've dreamed up.  What am I doing?! Why did I think this was a good idea? Am I really ready to stand between our new students and their parents--begging their parents to let us help their students grow up by asking students to take new responsibility for themselves as they enter the University and plan for their academic future? Ironically enough, at the same time I send parents a letter informing them about the semester's advising schedule and the goal mentioned above, I'm asking parents to be in touch with their students about advising and their students' responsibility toward advising and planning academic futures.

Why?

The idea behind this semester's blog is simple--inform parents and guardians about what we're doing in Letters and Sciences (LTSC) when it comes to advising and see if we can get even better results than we currently do (which are already very good) in terms of having students see us in a timely fashion, keep students on a good track toward graduation and, most importantly, keep them Maryland! Above everything--assist our students in declaring a major at Maryland.

It's important to note is what we do in Letters and Sciences. Our office advises students who are "undecided" or "undeclared" in their majors at Maryland. For "undecided" students, it's a simple premise. These students have no idea what they wish to major in at Maryland, and they need time to explore with our general education courses and explore many resources on campus which will help those students make informed decisions about a major. It takes a bit of time; but, most importantly, it takes commitment on the part of a student to really gather information and not expect anyone else to make the decision for them. It's a huge responsibility for these students. Most likely, they've never made a decision this big on their own before. We often call these students "Millennial students," and making decisions on their own can be a quite tough endeavor.

Here is a short article about Millennial students, if you've never heard of the generation characterized this way before. It would be interesting to know if you agree with the assessments and see these characteristics in this generation. In this article, the audience is higher ed teachers and professionals, but it's a good insight as to how higher education professionals may view these (your) students. Any comments can be made below!

This is a scholarly journal piece from  Michele Monaco and Malissa Martin in the "Athletic Training Education Journal" from 2007:  http://www.nataej.org/2.2/EJMonaco.pdf

I'll cover more on Millennials later in the semester.

The other type of student in LTSC are what we call "undeclared" students. At Maryland, most of our majors are open to any student who wishes to sign up and join a department. However, there are some who require prerequisite courses and a certain GPA to enter the major. We call these majors "Limited Enrollment Programs," or "LEPs" for short. These majors are Architecture, Business, an assorted group of Sciences, Communication, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Engineering, Government and Politics, Journalism, Landscape Architecture and Psychology. Each program has different requirements for student entry.  If students are not directly accepted to them as freshmen coming into Maryland, students have a second shot at applying for them by the time the student accumulated 60 credits, typically by the end of year two, their sophomore year. In the meantime, they're advising takes place in LTSC.

Here's a website for each Limited Enrollment Program and the requirements for entry: www.lep.umd.edu.  Advisors in LTSC work with students who are interested in these LEPs to make sure they are on track for a timely declaration of the major(s). For most of the programs, it's a simple case of taking certain courses and earning a specific GPA (see sheets). For a couple, Business and Architecture, the road is made slightly more difficult because entry into the major is competetive. It's not enough to just earn good grades for these majors, students have to demonstrate they are experienced, participatory and have good references.  Again, we'll cover more about LEPs later in the semester.

So, those are our students..."undecided" and "undeclared."  But no matter which may define our students, the beginning of the semester is all the same. They've come through orientation, advisors have worked with them to take appropriate courses, and now it's up to our students to get a strong start in their courses. Once they get going, we'll ask them to come in and see us to begin planning for the spring semester.

August 25, 2011

Here we are less than one week before classes begin.  This summer, we've seen first-year freshmen, transfer students, international students (today), non-degree seeking students, post baccalaureate students and even high school concurrent students--those high school students who are so academically talented Maryland lets them take one class per semester during their senior year. It's been an eventful summer!

The LTSC files!

It's common during this time of year for our office to begin seeing students from previous semesters who have not completed their registrations and suddenly find they need to speak with an advisor...now! We do our best to take care of everyone as quickly as possible, but it's difficult because we have orientation sessions every day, advisors are responding to emails from their own advising caseloads, and we are all gearing up for the academic year. Luckily, there are no real emergencies when it comes to academic advising, but I constantly wish students would be more mindful in planning ahead for their courses and any eventualities they may have facing. For the students that do take care of things ahead of schedule, they rarely have emergencies. Finally, we're all ready for a nice break since we'd been running orientation sessions throughout the entire summer.  No rest for the weary! This is one of our busiest times of the year. Folks often confuse anyone who works in education as having their summers off. Not academic advisors. We're most busy during the summer, the beginning of any semester and the end of any semester.

We're very excited this particular year because we are about to launch our first ever, "LTSC Convocation Rally" for all students who enrolled in our UNIV100 courses! UNIV100 is a one-credit class which assists students in making the transition from high school to college. We address academic advising planning issues, how to do well in college courses and other general transition issues our students will face--time management, making good decisions, parcipation in the Maryland community--the list goes on and on. We're excited, however, because next Thursday we'll get a chance to briefly meet our 30+ sections of UNIV before starting those classes the week of September 5th!

Summer 2011 Orientation Session

Students often think that once they have left orientation, nothing can be changed on their registration for the semester. We let them know that the belief is not necessarily true. While advisors have made every effort during orientation to assist a student in getting a course schedule that meets many demands (major prerequisites, student preferences, work schedules, etc.), we know that sometimes students may want to change minor things like a section meeting time or perhaps add a "wait-listed" course. Academic advisors covered how to do this with students on our scheduling system (www.testudo.umd.edu), but we count on them to contact us in the event they want to assure any changes they have made are good changes and not detrimental to a successful semester. They are all welcome to write us at askltsc@umd.edu or give us a call at 301-314-9402 until they have been assigned to an advisor. Our academic advisors staff our front desk operations, so when students call, they get to talk to an advisor immediately. Once students have been assigned to an advisor's "caseload" (the group of students they will have under their advising responsibilities), then students are asked to contact those advisors directly through email or by making an appointment to see them...and keep those appointments!

I've got to run now! We're ready to meet about 70+ international students who have just arrived on campus from all parts of the world.

August 22, 2011

Here we are counting down to the first day of classes for the fall 2011 semester. This week, LTSC is busy with daily, final orientation sessions for new freshmen and transfer students who were not able to attend earlier this summer.  Orientation is absolutely required  by all new LTSC students. Given LTSC has the second largest student population behind the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, we're kept very busy during the summer.  This year, we'll conduct orientation session through the first few days of classes into the semester.

See our blog this fall for information about academic advising in LTSC, especially focusing on the parent point of view. We believe that with this information, parents and guardians will be better equipped to have conversations with their students about how progress in academic planning for the future.

Check back for more information soon!

DID YOU KNOW about these deadlines?
This information can be found at the following address:
http://www.testudo.umd.edu/acad_cal/fall_2011.html

AUGUST 30 -- Last Day to Cancel Registration for the fall 2011 semester.

AUGUST 31 -- First Day of Classes! (Check-in begins now for all wait-listed classes!)

SEPTEMBER 14 -- Last Day to ADD/DROP a course for the fall. Students may drop any class up until this date, and the course will not appear on their transcripts. Please note that a student should be sure they remain in 12 credits at least to be a "full-time" student. If a student adds a course by this late date, they may wish to first check with their professor to be sure they can manage to make up any missed work and keep up in class!