The Faculty Federation Office is in the Research Building, Rm. 222 (x8067);
President Dan Georgianna (x8067);
ESU Chair, Bruce Sparfven (x8067)
The Faculty Federation Contract defines the rights, privileges and responsibilities
of faculty and determines much of the governance of the University, especially
with respect to personnel and governance issues. The sections most directly
pertinent to faculty are the following:
Article III:
Academic Freedom, Democracy and Responsibility
Article V:
Governance and Participation in Decision-Making. In this section are discussed
the selection of the department chairperson; committees from the department
to the university level for faculty evaluation and curricular changes; advisory
committees for the selection of administrators at the level of college dean
and above; other standing committees; and the role, constitution and procedures
of the Faculty Senate.
Article VI:
Initial Appointments
Article VII:
Personnel Recommendations. Listed in this section are the four criteria:
Teaching Effectiveness & Advising
Scholarship & Professional Activities
University Service
Public Service
These criteria are used for contract renewal, tenure, and promotion recommendations
and decisions. Also specified is how these criteria are to be weighted in
making recommendations for these personnel actions at the various levels of
the decision-making process. The timetable for personnel recommendations is
spelled out, and annual faculty evaluation procedures are described.
Article VIII:
Working Conditions, Teaching load and other faculty responsibilities are detailed
in this section. In addition, the academic year is defined and facilities
requirements are spelled out. The agency fee is delineated.
Article IX:
Sabbatical Leave. Requirements and policy guidelines for sabbaticals.
Article X:
Retrenchment and Affirmative Action
Article XI:
Salary and Fringe Benefits. The salary schedule, merit/equity adjustments
and benefits are treated in this section.
Article XII:
Continuing Studies. Faculty contracts and salaries and curriculum for DCS
are described.
Article XIII:
Grievance Procedures
(Refer to the Board of Trustees / Faculty Federation Contract Agreement)
Faculty Senate
The role and objectives of the Faculty Senate are outlined in the Faculty Federation
Contract, Article V. In brief, the Faculty Senate represents the faculty in
the areas of standards and policies for admissions and transfers, in the granting
of honorary degrees and honors awards for students; setting standards for
grading and academic regulations; and for policies affecting student activities
and cultural affairs (with student consultation), as well as policies governing
University research, library, computer usage, and the research or service
obligations to private or public agencies. More broadly, the Faculty Senate
is also charged with expressing faculty opinion on matters brought before
it.
The Senate is comprised of 51 full time faculty, with distribution mandated
from all colleges. Usually the Senate meets three times in the fall semester;
four meetings in the spring, with elections held in early May.
The entire faculty is notified of the date and agenda of each Senate meeting,
and are urged to attend and participate in discussion. However, only elected
Senators may vote on motions. The membership of the Faculty Senate is circulated
to all faculty and is listed in the back of the campus telephone
Ensures that student's educational records are kept private (including
grades);
Ensures that the student's social security number is protected;
Ensures that the university will disclose in public only a restricted
selection of general information about a student;
Gives the student the right to access his/her academic records (including
records held in department and faculty offices).
Following is a selection of items of special concern to faculty members. The
complete text of UMass Dartmouth's FERPA policies is available from the Office
of Academic Affairs/Graduate Studies.
Statement of Good Practices in Posting Grades, Returning Papers, & Related
Matters:
University Academic Ethical Standards Committee, January 26, 1999
Dear Colleagues:
At the request of the Faculty Senate, the University Academic Ethical
Standards Committee has examined the implications for faculty of the Family
Rights and Privacy Act of 1976 (usually referred to as the Buckley amendment).
This act deals with the confidentiality of student records, including
grades, letters of recommendation, and other information about students'
academic performance.
The law is administered by the Department of Education. In theory, violation
of this law by a university can be punished by the loss of all funding
from the Department of Education, including financial aid; in practice,
the Department of Education typically works with the institution to help
it to come into compliance with the law. The law does not provide criminal
penalties for individual faculty members. However, violations of the law
do leave faculty vulnerable to lawsuits.
Here, very briefly, are some of the requirements of the Buckley Amendment
that are most likely to impact on faculty. Not all of these requirements
are spelled out explicitly in the law itself; some have emerged from subsequent
court cases.
The law explicitly forbids faculty from posting grades by students' names,
social security numbers, or Student ID numbers, without students' written
permission. Even if the University were to assign students ID numbers
different from their social security numbers, posting by ID numbers would
still be a violation of the law.
There appear to be several ways that faculty members who post grades can
satisfy the requirements of the law. The most straightforward approach
is to get students' written permission to post grades according to their
Social Security/ID numbers. The law also appears to permit faculty members
to post grades according to the last few digits of the student's Social
Security number, without the need of written permission from the student.
Finally, faculty can assign arbitrary ID numbers to students and post
grades according to those numbers.
No matter how students are identified, the law forbids the posting of
grades in alphabetical order. The reasoning seems to be that if roll is
called in alphabetical order or students are required to sit in alphabetical
order, they will be able to determine at least some other students' grades
from their order in the list. And Mr. Aardvark and Ms. Zanzibar's grades
will always be known to everyone.
A practice that raises privacy issues similar to those raised by the
posting of grades is the returning of student papers and exams by leaving
them in boxes in hallways. When this is done, students can, and often
do, glance over each other's papers and exams. Neither the Buckley Amendment
nor subsequent case law seems to have spoken to this practice directly.
However, since returning papers and exams in this fashion is common here,
the UMD administration has asked the Faculty Senate to try to come up
with a means of dealing with the privacy issues this practice raises.
The simplest solution to this problem is, of course, for faculty to return
papers only during class sessions. However, some faculty have designed
their courses so that they must be able to return papers submitted at
one class session before the next class session, and many faculty need
to return final papers after classes have ended.
Although papers could be left with departmental secretaries, this would
place an additional burden on those secretaries, and would increase traffic
in what are often small offices. We have not come up with an entirely
satisfactory solution to this problem. Our recommendation is for faculty
to either place returned exams and papers in sealed envelopes or to staple
those exams and papers closed. Although this prevents students from glancing
through each others' papers, it does not prevent them from simply walking
off with them; fortunately, this appears to be an infrequent occurrence.
The Buckley Amendment also has implications for letters of recommendation.
Most faculty know that students have the right to view such recommendations
unless they explicitly waive that right. What some faculty may not know
is that the law forbids them from including in a letter of recommendation
any information that they have obtained from student records rather than
from personal knowledge or observation. Thus, faculty cannot include in
a recommendation information that they have obtained from SIS, such as
SAT or GPA information, without a signed release from the student.
The situations discussed so far are ones where the law forbids institutions
from revealing certain information. The law also requires that certain
information must be made publicly available. For example, a student's
ʻdirectory information' must be disclosed to anyone who requests it. At
UMD, a student's directory information includes the student's name, local
and permanent addresses and phone numbers, major, dates of attendance,
home town, membership in university organizations, weight and height (for
members of athletic teams), and degrees received. UMD provides printouts
of this information to both individuals and businesses on request; businesses
often use it for direct-mail advertising.
The law does say that a student can request that this information not
be given out. And UMD places a notice in the student handbook informing
students of this fact. However, it appears that very few students (or
faculty) are aware of this.
Another situation which involves faculty members in privacy issues is
when parents request information about their child's performance in school.
According to the law, the University can give out this information to
parents if they submit evidence that they have claimed the student as
a dependent on their most recent income tax form. However, the law does
not require the University to give out this information, and the policy
established by the UMD administration is not to do so.
Finally, any notes about a student that a faculty member places in a
file to which other University faculty and staff have access must be made
available to that student, on demand. Thus, if a faculty member makes
notes about a student's progress in the student's advising file, the student
has the right to see those notes. If a graduate admissions committee makes
notes in an applicant's folder, and that applicant is subsequently accepted
as a student, he/she has the right to see those notes. However, when individual
faculty members make notes about a student for themselves, and do not
show those notes to anyone else, the student does not have the right to
see them.
The Buckley Amendment is a lengthy document and we have only highlighted
its most salient points here. We have placed a copy of the law itself
on reserve at the library. Please feel free to contact us for further
clarification.
Respectfully submitted,
The University Academic Ethical Standards Committee
Richard Faulkenberry (Mathematics)
Barbara Jacobskind (English)
Bryan McFarlane (Visual Arts)
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth complies with the requirements of
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), sometimes referred
to as the "Buckley Amendment."
Retention of Records
UMass Dartmouth retains records that continue to have a legitimate function
but may discard records that have no continuing utility.
To cite one example, after an appropriate retention period records used in
providing a student with academic advising in a certain major may be discarded
after a student changes to a new major, or graduates.
The university will not discard any records after receiving notification,
as above, of a student's request to view those records.
Procedure to Inspect Education Records
Students may inspect and review their education records upon request to the
Office of University Records....
Right of University to Refuse Access
UMass Dartmouth will not permit a student to inspect the following records:
Financial statements of the student's parents.
Letters and statements of recommendations for which the student has waived
his or her right of access, or which were placed in the file before January
1, 1975.
Records connected with the application to attend UMass Dartmouth if that
application was denied or the student did not matriculate.
UMass Dartmouth reserves the right to refuse to permit a student to inspect
those records which are excluded from the FERPA definition of education records.
Copies of Educational Records
Access to view records does not necessarily convey a right to receive copies.
Disclosure of Education Records to Others
FERPA restricts significantly the right of others to view a student's educational
records.
The following are categories of individuals who by federal law and the procedures
established for the university may view or receive a student's educational
records:
The student him or herself (except materials to which the student has
waived the right of access, such as confidential letters of recommendation).
Persons whom the student authorizes by name in a written, signed statement
that names the records to be released....
Individuals who are "officials" of the campus and university and who
have a "legitimate educational interest" in the record or a "need to know"
information in the record.
At UMD, "officials" includes:
Persons employed or contracted by UMass Dartmouth in an administrative,
supervisory, teaching, research, or support staff position (in some cases
including students hired as support staff);
Officers of the UMass central administration; or
Students or others serving on committees where legitimate "need to know"
exists (examples are persons serving on a committee that recommends award
of scholarships or serving on the board of an honor society).
Such officials have a "legitimate educational interest" or "need to know"
if performing a task that includes each of the following -
It falls within the context of their assigned institutional duties or
responsibilities;
It relates to the functioning of the office, position, or committee involved;
It relates to the education or the disciplining of the student; and
It is consistent with the purposes for which the information is kept.
Parents who have established that the student is a dependent on their
federal income tax. Otherwise parents have no right of access to their
daughter's or son's educational records.
(Note: anyone seeking this access should contact the Office of Academic
Affairs/Graduate Studies.)
Persons or organizations providing financial aid to students or determining
those aid awards, as necessary to determine eligibility, amounts, or conditions
of an award or to enforce its terms and conditions.
Persons in compliance with a judicial order or lawful subpoena....
Appropriate parties in an emergency if the knowledge or information is
necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or others.
Officials of another school in which a student seeks or intends to enroll,
upon request and with appropriate documentation.
Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the university.
Accrediting organizations to carry out their functions.
An alleged victim of any crime of violence, of the results of any institutional
disciplinary proceeding against the alleged perpetrator of that crime
with respect to that crime.
Persons authorized to view or retain a student's educational records, as above,
may in no case transmit, share, or disclose the information to any third party.
All third-party requests for information should be addressed to the Office
of the University Registrar.
Record of Requests for Disclosure
UMass Dartmouth will maintain a record of all requests for and/or disclosure
of information from a student's education records....
Information that can be Disclosed Publicly ("Directory Information")
The university has designated the following categories of student information
as "directory information," which is information that can be disclosed publicly
without permission: student's name, local and permanent addresses, and phone
numbers, electronic mail address, most recently attended previous school or
college, major field of study, dates of attendance, home town where applicable,
membership in university curricular and extra-curricular organizations, weight/height
of members of athletic teams, and degrees and awards received.
Currently enrolled students may require UMass Dartmouth to withhold disclosure
of the above categories of directory information, by submitting a written
request to the Student Enrollment Services Center or the Office of the University
Registrar....
UMass Dartmouth makes its current Directory available not only to students
but to members of the general public, including political groups, public or
private agencies, and advertisers. The full directory is offered as a whole
in printed form (computer print-out),for a fee that recovers our expenses.
It is not offered electronically or sorted by special categories.
Correction of Educational Records
Students have the right to ask to have records corrected that they believe
are inaccurate, misleading, or in violation of their privacy rights....
Types & Locations of Student Education Records
UMass Dartmouth makes available a listing of the types and locations of the
student education records it maintains.
This list is available in the Office of the University Registrar.
The Right to File a Complaint
The student has a right to file a complaint with the U. S. Department of Education
concerning alleged failures by UMass Dartmouth to comply with the requirements
of FERPA.
The name and address of the office that administers FERPA is:
The Office of the University Registrar creates a set final examination schedule
and publishes it in the Course Listings booklet.
The schedule offers three-hour sessions spread across five examination days,
and a sixth day for special large-group examinations. Refer to the Course
Listings booklets for details and the specific schedule in effect for the
term in question.
Faculty may not alter the times, days, or locations of the final examinations
from what is determined in this schedule.
Furthermore, faculty are discouraged from giving a final examination during
the final week of the semester.
However, if any examining is done during that final week, it must fall within
the regularly scheduled instructional time periods for that course.
Financial Aid
Nearly all students are eligible for some type of financial assistance.
Financial Aid Services is
located at 105 Foster Administration Building and welcomes inquiries from
current and prospective students and their families. They conduct many financial
aid presentations both on and off-campus each year to assist university applicants
and the community.
If students experience unforeseen financial difficulties at any time or have
questions concerning financial aid, they should contact the Student Enrollment
Services Center of Financial Aid Services, Foster Administration Building,
x8632.
UMass Dartmouth awards financial aid based upon federal, state, and institutional
guidelines, and determines eligibility by using the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Financial assistance may
be available in the form of need-based
grants, scholarships,
loans
and work-study
programs. Non need-based loans are also available to students and families
who do not qualify for need-based aid.
The eligibility for a need-based financial aid award is based on each individual
applicant's financial need, which is determined in the financial aid application
process. Both the amount and the type of aid awarded are related to the financial
needs and circumstances of the individual and the timeliness of the FAFSA
form.
Financial Aid Services is committed to helping applicants and students with
all phases of the aid application and award process. The office provides much
guidance in helping applicants through the steps in the process; however,
it is the responsibility of the student who desires aid to obtain the necessary
forms and instructions from Financial Aid Services and to fill out all required
forms accurately and to supply all necessary information and to meet all applicable
deadlines.
Application Process
Application for all need-based aid programs is made by completing the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Certain non-need parent and student
loans also require submission of the FAFSA.
Early application is strongly encouraged. The priority filing date
is for FAFSA materials to be received at the Federal processor by March
1st before the year for which aid is sought, with UMass Dartmouth
included in the list of schools. The UMass Dartmouth Title IV school code
is 002210.
We recommend mailing your FAFSA by February 15th to ensure priority consideration.
Students must be admitted to a degree program before eligibility can be determined
for financial aid. Graduate students and second-degree students are not eligible
for federal or state grant programs.
Students who receive need-based financial assistance are subject to academic
progress and performance requirements in the continuation of their studies.
These standards are outlined in the Academic Regulations and Procedures section
of this Catalogue, and full information about the process and conditions are
available in Financial Aid Services.
Tuition Reduction Program
The tuition reduction program offsets raises in tuition by the awarding of
tuition reductions to financially-needy undergraduate students (except those
in Continuing Studies) who are legal residents of Massachusetts and U.S. citizens
or eligible non-citizens as defined by the federal guidelines for financial
aid eligibility. These awards are made in increments up to a maximum of the
full cost of resident tuition and are awarded by Financial Aid Services. Eligibility
is determined by demonstrated financial need on the same basis and the same
application procedures and deadlines as with other University-administered
need-based aid programs.
Student Employment
Students at the university can contribute toward their college expenses and
gain valuable work experience through many varieties of student employment.
Many students have work allotted through federal college work-study awarded
as a part of financial aid. In addition, however, many others find campus
jobs regardless of whether they have demonstrated a financial need or received
an aid award. Furthermore, others seek part-time or summer work off campus,
and the university assists them in learning of such opportunities.
Students seeking employment, both those awarded federal work-study and those
seeking other forms of work, should visit the
Career Resources Center to learn about work opportunities and receive
job assignments.
Students who are awarded federal work-study through the financial aid process
receive the necessary support to obtain their actual work-study assignment
from Career Resources. Information sessions held during the summer and into
the fall semester give the information students need to make the most of their
college work-study experience. Many kinds of on-campus work-study assignments
are available, and off-campus work-study is also available through the Community
Service Learning Program.
Non-work-study employment is also found at Career Resources. The
Student Employment Directory lists positions with various campus organizations
and departments, and the office staff assists students in matching their interests
and qualifications to the available positions. The office also maintains a
listing of off-campus part-time work and summer jobs, posting vacancies on
bulletin boards in the office and, along with full-time opportunities, publishing
announcements in the weekly JobTrakker Bulletin.
The Frederick Douglass Unity House (x9222) recognizes the special needs of
the university's diverse student body, seeking to establish a cultural environment
focused on the unique social, cultural, and academic needs of students of
color. On a day-to-day basis students use the space to study, access computer
facilities, hold organizational meetings, plan activities and events, meet
with members of faculty and staff, or just socialize. Here the entire student
body can experience, participate in, and initiate activities that foster an
inclusive campus culture. The Unity House is open from 8:30 am to 10:00 pm
Monday through Friday and at selected weekend times for special events.
