FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) affords students certain rights with respect to their education records. These include the right to:

• Inspect and review their records.

• Request an amendment of their education record that the student believes is inaccurate or misleading.

• Consent to disclosures of personally identifiable information covered under FERPA.

• File a complaint with the United States Department of Education concerning alleged failures by Elon University to comply with the requirements of FERPA.

Directory information is data that is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. The items below can be disclosed at the discretion of Elon University unless the student requests the information be withheld:

Name, address, telephone number, dates of attendance, class, and electronic e-mail address.

Previous institution(s) attended, major field of study, awards, honors (including Dean’s list), degree(s) conferred (including dates).

Past and present participation in officially recognized sports and activities, physical factors (height, weight of athletes), date and place of birth.

Students may submit a FERPA Release Form to give consent for another individual to request the student’s education records. The Form must clearly state who is given authorization and what academic information is being released. If an inquiry is made regarding a topic that isn’t expressly written on the form, it cannot be released. Only the person authorized on the Form may access the information being released.

According to FERPA, a student can request an institution to withhold all Directory Information. Institutions must comply with this request once it is received, if the student is still enrolled.

Currently enrolled Elon students may request to withhold Directory Information by completing the “Request to Withhold Directory Information Form” and sending the completed Form from your Elon email account to registrar@elon.edu

Students who wish to restrict directory information should realize that their names will not appear in the commencement bulletin and other university publications. Also, employers, credit card companies, loan agencies, scholarship committees and the like will be denied any of the student’s directory information and will be informed that we have no information available about the “persons” attendance at Elon University.

For requests regarding course schedules or grades, please email the Registrar’s Office at registrar@elon.edu using the email address that was specified on the FERPA Release Form. In the email, please specify the student and the educational records you are requesting. If you request records that are not explicitly included by the student on their Release Form, we cannot provide information.

The student must authorize discussions with professors/advisors on their FERPA Release Form. If it is authorized, you may contact the university official using the email or phone number specified on the FERPA Release Form. Please note that a FERPA Release does not compel university officials to disclose all information about the student. It is at the discretion of the university official to assess whether the information is relevant to your request.

FERPA protects any currently enrolled student or anyone who has ever attended Elon in the past. Applicants or prospective students are not guaranteed rights under FERPA.

Education records are defined as any academic or non-academic information that is directly related to the student and maintained by the institution (or affiliated party like a contractor). Academic information includes, but is not limited to: grades, class schedules, academic progress, unofficial transcripts, and class attendance. Non-academic information includes, but is not limited to: administrative records, disciplinary records, Dean of Students records, residential assignment information, and campus life records.

Sensitive information such as class rosters, grades, assignments, etc. should be kept on Elon-supplied devices and/or cloud storage under your Elon email account. Sensitive information should not be stored on any personal devices or accounts.

Please contact Rodney Parks, University Registrar and Assistant Vice President, and Gary Sheehan, Information Security Director, as soon as possible. They can be contacted at rparks4@elon.edu and gsheehan2@elon.edu.

Our duty as university officials is to affirm the identity of the user before disclosing FERPA-protected student information. Telephone numbers and non-Elon emails are not reliable methods to positively identify the student. Elon resources like Elon email and Moodle are appropriate ways to communicate with students.

Elon University is committed to ensuring compliance under FERPA. To achieve this, we are supported by our partners at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) for our FERPA trainings. In the event of a change or amendment to FERPA, we would be notified by AACRAO and work with their organization to update our FERPA content in a timely manner. Once updates are made, the revised FERPA educational content undergoes a comprehensive review by the University Registrar and any relevant stakeholders.