General Policy on Access to College Records in the Archives
Records Scheduled for Permanent Retention
College records scheduled for permanent retention fall into one
of three general categories.
-
Category 1: Personal
- Records that contain personal information about an individual
or individuals. These may include, for example, student academic
records, faculty and staff personnel records, and alumni office
records. After processing, records of this type scheduled for
permanent retention are closed for 75 years from date of creation
or until the death of the individuals mentioned in the records.
Then the records are open without restriction.
-
Category 2: Universal Distribution
- Records that were in general distribution at the time of their
creation. These records generally include announcements, college
publications, calendars, brochures, minutes of faculty meetings,
some committee reports. After processing, records of this type
scheduled for permanent retention are open immediately without
restriction.
-
Category 3: General College Records
- Records of the administration of the college, its policies and
programs, that do not fall into either category 1 or category
2. These include records from administrative and academic departments
and of committees. After processing, records of this type scheduled
for permanent retention are closed for 20 years from date of creation,
then are open without restriction.
Note:
For records series dated by academic year, access is restricted until
after the end of the academic year. For example: records created in
academic year 1974-75 were closed until June 1, 1995. For series dated
by calendar year, access is restricted until after Dec. 31. For series
dated by fiscal year, access is restricted until the end of the fiscal
year.
Additional conditions:
- Records access policies and retention schedules for individual
records series are developed by the college archivist in conjunction
with the originating office and are reviewed by college counsel.
- All records are reviewed for material that contains sensitive
or private information. As a result, individual records series
may have restrictions placed on them that differ from the general
restrictions listed above. The standard closure period of 10-20
years may be reduced or extended with the consent of the President
or the appropriate senior officer.
- A researcher may petition the records creator for written permission
to view closed files.
- Unprocessed records in any category are open only to the records
creator.
Records Scheduled for Destruction
Records not scheduled for permanent retention are scheduled for
destruction. There are two types of destruction.
-
Confidential Destruction.
- The College has a contract with a commercial service to have
sensitive records disposed of confidentially. If the records fall
into category 1 or category 3 above they must be confidentially
destroyed through the College Archives. These records should not
be disposed of by the records creator. Records scheduled for confidential
destruction are not processed in any way and are open only to
the records creator until they are destroyed.
General Destruction.
Records in category 2 (Universal Distribution) should be either
recycled or disposed of in a like manner. The records creator
is responsible for the destruction of this material.
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