Dean and Director of Admissions Respond to Recent Concerns About Data Privacy and Campus Tour Safety

Since the beginning of October, The Hill News has received several anonymous complaints towards the Admissions Office from students on campus. These concerns include students’ data privacy and the return of campus tours. This Tuesday, The Hill News had the chance to sit down with the Dean and Executive Director of Admissions to hear their response and to provide students with answers to these concerns.

Thao Nguyen (TN): We received information from students saying that student workers at the Admissions Office can use the data system and look up information on their peers. The list of information includes home address, phone number, high school GPA, standardized test scores, how often they check their emails, and how often they go to counseling. Is this true? And if true, how are you planning to resolve this problem?

Dean of Admissions Florence Hines (FH): When we heard about this from you, we were incredibly concerned because this is a data breach. We have 70-75 students working at the office and they are working with a limited and protected amount of data that is for the upcoming 2021 class. Before they can look at the data, they have to sign a confidentiality agreement. So this person went backward to an unauthorized part of our data system to find information on their current peers. This is someone who has deliberately gone against the policies in place for student workers in this office.

Executive Director of Admissions Jeremy Freeman (JF): When we hire student workers in the building, part of their job is communicating with prospective students. It could be both phone calls and emails. However, it is forward-facing, so the student workers should be working on those who will join us in the Spring or next Fall, not going back in years to look at other people’s communications. Once a student enrolls here, though, their record is frozen in our system and is switched over to the university system. We don’t carry any forward communication after June of your high school year. The system would also never show when you go to counseling. So, the person looking at places they are not supposed to look, and they are also making false assumptions about what they are seeing. This is also a training issue and we are going to get to the end of this.

FH: Yes, after we received your email, we have shut down the system and we are only planning to reopen it once we find out who the person is. This is unfortunate for our other student workers who will not get paid for their full amount of hours because they can’t work in the system. This is individual paychecks are being hurt because someone has created a breach. Also, we are looking into developing new ways to lock down data before we consider letting any students back into it.

TN: Another concern that we received is that while SLU students cannot leave St. Lawrence County, there are people from places coming to our Institution for in-person campus tours. Why is that the case? Furthermore, what are your regulations for visitors so that you can ensure safety for the campus community?

FH: Since students don’t choose colleges without seeing them in most cases, Admissions visitors are perceived as an essential business for St Lawrence University. When we were building the reopening plans in June and in July, we, as an Institution, agreed that it was critical to the Admissions office to be able to bring people in; but the Office has to do it safely and to keep the visitors as far away from people on campus as possible. And because it fell into the essential business rules, it has a different set of criteria than the Laurentian Pact. We followed the state of New York, the department of health, and the campus regulations for external visitors. 

JF: When we started to host visitors on campus, we sent out an email to the entire campus community to announce our safety protocols that will take place for visitors to keep the campus safe. All admissions visitors must pre-register for an appointment with the Admission Office, and complete a pre-screening form before they can come. We also monitor the State list every day to ensure that all of our communication to students, at the time that we send it, their state has to be on the approved list. One other thing is that they have to complete an attestation before they arrive for their session to ensure that they will follow all the safety measures set in place at the University. 

FH: One thing to mention also is that once families go through the registration process, they are given a red wristband for identification purposes. We don’t have a closed campus people could walk on campus from anywhere, but if they are a guest of ours, they will receive an identifier to let our community know that those are the people who have gone through the process and have been checked. 

TN: Some students are concerned that Admissions tour guides will sometimes overstate facts while giving tours. So, for my last question, are there incentives for Admissions tour guides to skew what SLU is to increase enrollment?

FH: That is absolutely the opposite of what we stand for in terms of honesty and integrity. We want our student workers to give prospective students an honest assessment. The goal is to give a well-balanced look at the institution, to use facts and data appropriately, and then to only put your personal experience in the context of a point that you are trying to make. While they don’t have a script to memorize, they have the university factbook. So, they should not be messing with data, facts, and the accuracy of information. We do not wish for someone to misrepresent our University.