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20. Privacy of Educational Records

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 protects the privacy of student records, ensuring that the university will not release a transcript or personal information about a student to a third party without the student’s knowledge and consent. Only those data items which have been defined by the university as directory information are released without prior student consent.

The university defines directory information as a student’s name, local (mailing), home and email addresses, major, local telephone number, date and place of birth, acknowledgement of a student’s participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, date(s) of attendance, degrees, certificates, awards received, the most recent previous educational agency or institution attended by the student. For graduate students who are teaching/assisting credit courses and for graduate students who are employed as assistant residence directors, the work department, office address, and employment category will also be considered as directory information.

The university will make public some or all of this information, unless the student specifically requests in writing that his/her prior consent be obtained. Requests by individual students to suppress from public distribution the above-mentioned information are to be made annually to the Graduate Records Office in person or in writing.

A document titled Family Education Rights and Privacy Act at the University of Massachusetts explains in detail the procedures established by this institution for compliance with the provisions of the Act. A copy is available for inspection in the Graduate School.