Student Privacy

Protecting Student Privacy: FERPA

As a peer mentor, you will have access to information about students that needs to be kept private and discussed only confidentially and using the right channels. Guiding principles come from FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), which you can learn about by watching the training video on this page.

Kinds of Information to Protect

Here are the kinds of student identifying information to protect:

  • Name

  • Address

  • Telephone number

  • Current enrollment status (full-time/part-time)

  • Class standing

  • Receipt or non-receipt of a degree

  • Academic awards received

  • Physical description

Because this video wasn't created in-house, here are a couple clarifications:

  • Where the video refers to "faculty of record," the HSI-STEM equivalent is the "mentor overseers of record".

  • The video refers to "Net IDs", which for us are "user IDs". The "Personal ID Number" for us is CUNYfirst EMPLID (employee ID). ​