FERPA Information session 2017

Exceptions to FERPA

• Sole possession (un shared) records
• College law enforcement records
• Medical/psychological treatment records
• Alumni records crafter after the student was enrolled
• Peer graded papers an exams prior to the grade was awarded

Are student related comments or notes covered by FERPA?

• Notes are not in the category of sole possession are a part of the student education record and subject to FERPA
• Degree works notes
• keep notes factual and objective

Who can view student record information without consent?

• School officials' faculty with legitimate educational interest
• Officials at an institution in which student seeks or intends to enroll or is currently enrolled
• Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes
• Appropriate parties in connection with awarding financial aid to a student
• Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school

Information can be given out without consent (Directory information)

• Date of enrollment
• degrees earned

Not given out:

• address
• date of birth
• phone numbers

What if parent needs information about child?

• see if student accompanies the parent
• tax returns have the student as dependent

Letter of recommendations

• requires a written and signed confirmation of student's request
• The legal council was not clear on this wriiten requirement or if an e-mail request would suffice and mentioned that he will let faculty know about the updated procedure of securing student consent.

Social Media

• FERPA does not forbid instructors from using social medial in classroom adhering to common sense guidelines to ensure protections of students

• If students are assigned to post information to public media, make them aware of its visible ness
• If student chooses to post any information by themselves, they are free to do that FERPA only covers what faculty and staff can and cannot do
• be careful when confidential/grade discussing information with a student via email or phone as we do not know who is on the recipient's end.

Admission records are not art of the educational record unless the student enrolls in classes

Examples of FERA violation
publicaly posting grades using IDs/names
discussion of progress reports without students written consent
 

About rBST

I wanted to write about my discussion on the allegedly popular organic milk as compared to regular rBST cow-treated milk. This talk happened between me and my friend. My friend was of the opinion that there is a hype of organic things now a days (2015) and that why would an organic gallon stay much longer in the fridge as compared to a regular rBST derived milk, assuming that organic milk does not have any preservatives....mt friend suspected that something doesn't add up as natural organic milk should naturally get stale sooner. Well, we both figured the answer:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-organic-milk-lasts-longer/

Now lets move over to another statement "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows." advised by the FDA.

On Nov 05, 1993 FDA approved the use of rBST and it is stated at its website that:
"FDA believes that the available data confirm that biologically significant amounts of rbGH are not absorbed in humans following the consumption of milk from cows treated with rbGH. Oral toxicity studies of longer duration are not necessary because rbGH at dietary levels found in the milk of rbGH-treated cows is not significantly biologically available."

In contrast, a Canadian study found that rBST increased the risks of mastitis, failure to conceive, and lameness in cows. Use of rBST increased the risk of a cow failing to conceive by approximately 40%. For cows which did conceive, there was no effect on services per conception and only a small increase in average days open (5 days). Use of the drug had no effect on gestation length, but the information about a possible effect on the risk of twinning was equivocal. Cows treated with rBST had an estimated 55% increase in the risk of developing clinical signs of lameness. Few studies reported data on culling, but based on those that did, there appeared to be an increase risk of culling evident in multiparous cows. Use of the drug in 1 lactation period appeared to reduce the risk of metabolic diseases (particularly ketosis) in the early period of the subsequent lactation.

Currently,  rBST is banned in Canada, Europe, and Japan.

And then you have Monsanto (the producer of rBST) striking back the use of "rBST-free" term. Monsanto Company is striking back against a trend among dairy processors to ban the use of the company’s genetically engineered hormone, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), and to label their products as rBST-free.

In the US, on Sept 29th 2010, the 6th circuit found rBST milk “materially different”  and noted that "The court cites three reasons milk produced by rbST-treated cows is different: increased levels of the hormone IGF-1, a period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation, and increased somatic cell counts in the milk. The court further noted that higher somatic cell counts indicate milk is poor quality and will turn sour more quickly."

Spring 2014 Opening SST Meeting hosted by Dean SST

 Student enrollment for various disciplines.

                             Fall2012               Fall2013

Gen Bio:              703                      775

Cell Bio:              238                       209

BioChem:              302                     352

Pre-bio teach cert   8                            7            

Ex Sc                     346                     377       

Digital Media          37                       132

System&Security   209                       226

S/W Dev               321                       325

Pure Math            34                          37

Applied Math      55                          58

Pre-math Teacher cert    69                          39

Math teacher cert            19                          13

Dean’s survey feedback

87 respondendents

Better campus wide advocate (21%)

Improve communications (11%)

Organization SST better (10%)

Delegate more: 7%

Active Learning Strategies (ALS) website

·        What ALS are you using in your class

·        SST is creating a repository of ALS

·        Why? Share ideas. Support our PT faculty

ALS committee: Anatoly Kurkovsky

·        Gerald Agbegha – Math

·        Leonard Anagho – Chem

·        Jeff Pasley – Ex Science

·        Lijun Pang – Physics

·        Chris Brown – Biology

·        Cuilan Wang – IT

·        David Kerven – Dean Office.

Changes for Fall 2014

·        1000 more students (9900 currently)

·        New AHSB bldg.

·        Office moves

·        New academic services and offices in D bldg.

·        New classrooms

·        New undergrad research suite

·        New faculty

·        Block scheduling for all new full-time freshman

·        Disconnect registration from bear essentials

·        33 new SST our of 68 new GGC faculty

·        Faculty in B, A, will move to D, I, RL, or H

·        Rearrangement of I-bldg office assignments to facilitate disciplinary grouping

Weekend Cohort Programs

Zero Day Initiative: March  through the arch,

Miscellaneous Reminders:

·        Book selection policy: all sections use the same text book, exceptions are theme-based courses.

·        Laptop cart data

·        Copying

·        Finals

·        Feels like a million wellness program

·        whiteboard

State of SST at GGC

Some excerpts from SST beginning of Fall 2016 meeting.

• Total of around  at GGC400 faculty. 20 New faculty and 2 new staff
• Expected number of students at GGC 12000, goal for Fall 2017 is 13000
• Addition of new bldg C-3 having classrooms and offices
• Compass testing systems is being upgraded to Accuplacer that uses some metrics based on Math Placement Index
• GGC Added new provost, TJ
• New Grants worth $170,000 including mini-grants, PSI, and service learning
• 
  
• NSF IUSE selection of $1.6 million per year for 4 years consists of mini-grans and PSI
• NSF MRI - $150,000 purchase of Atomic Force Microscope at GGC
• 
  
• Supervision of student research/independent study shall provide teaching load credit of 3 students supervised in 9 students as a part of STEC 4500. STEC 4500 mini-grants of up to $5000 for supplies and equipment, watch out for RFPs and submission shall be due by the end of August.

• CIP: Collaboration with neighboring institutions: Proposals: external organizational collaborator (industry, non profit, govt, non academic component of GGC.

Merit Raises Protocols

• Max limit raise is 5%
• Solely of Merit 
• not across the board
• cannot be used for promotion
• cannot be used for salary compression
• Eligibility 2 years as of July 2014, good standing, meritorious performance
• GGC guidelines-$1500 to all eligible, $1000 additional to top 35% performers
• SST procedure:
• considered last 2 years of performance
• evaluators were asked to submit top 35% in each of the last 2 years
• Faculty and staff who were top performers both years were given $1000 addition
• Dean made decision on pool of faculty submitted as top performers in one of the two years
• Criteria: excellence in all 4 areas

GGC Complete to cater to weekend only class and non-traditional students

• IT weekend cohort program
• GGC suspended the program with exception of cohort-1, replace it with a 3 year plan for program completion that shows a detailed schedule
• Will develop for ITEC, biology, exercise science

All Faculty Meeting Spring 2017

Approximate enrollment at GGC

Fall 2016: 12,000

Spring: 11,500

Fall 2017:12,500

Compliance day: 08/04/2017

West hall starts construction in summer 2017, bldg open sin Aug 2018. It will have office space for 140 faculty

Regents Engineering Program

Travel funding: about $650 per faculty, covers travel miles, flights, hotel stay (max of $1000).

STEC 4500: Supervision of student research/independent study shall provide teaching load credit of 3 students supervised in 9 students as a part of STEC 4500. Each student typically spend a total of 90-100 hours for STEC (typically 6 hrs/week).

Growth of disciplines at GGC

2006-2007: 1 dean, 4 faculty
2007-2008: added IT, chemistry, math disciplines

2008-2009: added exercise science
2010-2011: added physics discipline
2011-2012: added PE discipline



Coordinator/manager

• schedules
• distributes information
• asks
• organizes
• suggests
• identifies issues
• short term planning

 
Leader: role of GGC COPS

• does all of above and
• inspires
• represents
• directs
• develops
• long-term planning
• evaluates
• accepts responsibilities for failures

Proposed leadership roles
roles of assistant deans to disciplines
chair of faculty:
faculty evaluation, faculty workload, service assignments, teaching assignments. mentee assignments, 

 

Title IX Overview

Prohibits discrimination based on gender. Covered persons include anyone participating in and getting benefits under educational program funded by federal government.

Any employee is required to inform GGC about any potential title ix violation to the title ix coordinator at GGC

Hearing a rumor also is sufficient to report it to the coordinator, faculty need not confirm or talk about the incident with any one involved (or not involved)

About FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

-Designed to protect the privacy of educational records. Gives guidelines for using and releasing student education records.

-Begins for a student after at 18 years of age or enrolled in a higher education institution

-Right allows student to review educational records, request corrections, control the disclosure of certain aspects of their educational records.

Types of disclosures
Personal information disclosure
Directory disclosure

Hardship Withdrawals covered by FERPA
Until mid-term students can get a W without GPA affect. After mid-term, if something prevents a student from continuing the semester studies, students can write a letter with supporting documents to the registrar and may be considered for hardship withdrawal. These supporting documents become a part of FERPA documents.

-Peer Grading are not covered until they have been formally recorded/assigned to the students
-Letter of reference may contain academic information only if accompanied with a signed release from the student. Strongly recommended to get a signed release letter from the student mentioning what information needs to be released in the reference letter. Personal observations of a student in a letter of reference are not covered by FERPA

-911/emergency calls: Students personal identifiable information can be shared with responders.