On Respecting Your Student’s Privacy
Today I want to talk about student privacy, but first I want to share a couple emails that went out to students: WFU Should Know (which goes out every Thursday afternoon); this message from the Office of Residence Life and Housing about occupancy verification and upcoming inspections; and this message to new students who are not compliant with all required immunizations (please be sure your Deac didn’t get that message).
Now to privacy: each of our students is covered by a federal law called FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). FERPA essentially says that colleges cannot disclose information about a student’s educational record without their permission; students can grant permission for administrators to speak to any individuals the student designates via the Proxy Access process.
Just as the University is bound to protect students’ privacy, I also want to suggest that parents and families should protect students’ privacy as well. We know there are many ways that families connect to each other – you might have other Wake families in your hometown that you socialize with, you may have traded cell phone numbers with other Wake families and have a group chat set up, or you may have joined a parenting message board/Facebook group/online forum, etc.
As a mom myself, there are many times where I want to ask questions of other parent friends about how to handle a certain situation, whether I should worry about X or Y, etc. In the digital world, it is easy to ask those questions in group chats or message boards. But I would urge you to think before you type/text/talk, and ask yourself “would my student be upset if they knew information about them was being shared in a public forum?” (even if it is a closed group).
In my conversations with parent and family professionals at other schools, one of the themes we hear is about is family oversharing – giving more detail than a student might want out in public. For example, some families share on school message boards that they are worried because their student hasn’t made friends yet, or they have a mental health condition they are struggling with and want recommendations on counselors, or need medicine/doctor referral for something the student might find embarrassing for others to know (think acne, eating disorder, OB/GYN, etc.). Those are all understandable reasons you might want to seek other families’ advice, and are well-intended gestures trying to find suggestions to help your kiddo.
What I hear from my colleagues at other schools – particularly at smaller schools like Wake – is that even if a family member doesn’t name their student, if the family member’s name is attached to their post/text/message, it may not be hard for an intrepid person to figure out who that student is.
Sharing your student’s situation can feel like a breach of trust to your student if they found out that other people had access to information about them that they had not consented to be public.
Students this age are incredibly concerned with the way they are perceived by their peers – particularly if they are keen to join a certain group, attain a leadership position on campus, etc. They may feel sabotaged if they discover their trusted loved ones are sharing information online or in texts that would mortify them for others to know.
I know there are moments where college families have anxieties about their students or want advice. I have those moments too as a high school parent. When those moments arrive, please consider confiding in a source that routinely keeps student information private or confidential – an administrator or office on campus, a therapist, a pastor/priest/rabbi/imam (or even your in-real-life best friend you know would never disclose the information), etc. – rather than crowdsource your question in an online/public platform if your student might consider it sensitive information.
You could also ask your student’s permission to pose a question/ask for advice for a situation they are dealing with. If they grant it, great. If not, don’t share it publicly. And also a reminder, respecting student privacy also means not sharing information about their roommate/suitemate/romantic partner in public forums either.
A reminder that undergraduate classes are in session Monday, but it is a holiday for staff. Have a great weekend and call your Deacs 🙂
— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)
September 2, 2022