When Kyle Jepson walked into her playwriting class last year, she expected the usual syllabus-and-roll-call first day. She did not expect the professor to announce her unpaid fees to the entire class.
"It was the first day, he was calling roll and when he got to my name he announced that my fees were unpaid," said Jepson, a junior in theatre. "I didn't know what to do."
In Ohio State classes, professors can access rosters online through the university registrar Web site and find out students have unpaid fees. According to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Web site, there is no specific guideline pertaining to the privacy of a student's financial records.
"I think it's OK for instructors to know, but not OK to announce it in front of the entire class," Jepson said. "It just brings unneeded stress, and they don't know if the student is just late on their payments or actually have financial difficulties."
Brad A. Myers, the university registrar, said professors should be aware of students' fee status because they have the knowledge of whether a student is attending class without paying. Myers also acknowledged, however, the inappropriateness of announcing unpaid fees to other students.
"The instructor should not be announcing this to the class since it's no one else's business," he said.
FERPA's Web site lists policies about grades, writing student recommendations, releasing confidential information to a student's parents and academic records. The Web site does not specify whether the education records include a student's financial record.
According to their Web site, "FERPA is a federal law designed to protect the privacy of students' education records. Education records include any information or documentation that is recorded in any way ... directly related to a student ..."
Some instructors rely on the information the roster gives them to keep students out of unfavorable situations. If a student gets hurt in a chemistry experiment, OSU could possibly be held liable - even if the student has not paid for the class.
Chemistry laboratory supervisor Robert J. Tatz said chemistry classes need to have about 25 students per lab to regulate the use of potentially dangerous materials. If students with unpaid fees are attending class, it is unfair to students who were possibly shut out of the class.
"You really can't get a free class," Tatz said. "The issue is we don't want anyone to get hurt."
Tatz also said about a year ago the university registrar would e-mail his teaching assistants about students with unpaid fees.
"We were receiving e-mails from the registrar telling us to not let students attend class," Tatz said adding that he did not feel comfortable making his teaching assistants do this.
If the situation called for it, he would e-mail the student confidentially.
"We don't want someone in the class who hasn't paid fees," Tatz said. "But we would have never singled them out."
Myers said there is not a specific policy preventing instructors from announcing the status of a student's fees to an entire class.
"Certainly every specific example of a potential FERPA issue is not given to faculty members, so I can't say that instructors are specifically told not to say who hasn't paid to their class," Myers said. "If someone lets us know a specific instructor has announced to the class the non-payment status, we would contact that person and let him or her know that is inappropriate."
Angela Henderson can be reached at henderson.419@osu.edu.
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