Officials in the School of Education, Teaching and Health will notify students whose personal information may have been compromised after three boxes of student records ended up in a McKinley Building hallway.
A total of six SETH-owned boxes were among those removed in late January after being found in a second floor hallway inside the building. Huyen Nguyen, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, discovered the boxes and tipped off The Eagle and Student Government President Joe Vidulich about the situation. Judy Swannee, SETH's graduate programs adviser and coordinator, removed the boxes and secured them in an office within the building, The Eagle previously reported.
SETH officials now believe the boxes were originally removed along with most of the school's records when they moved from McKinley to Gray Hall in 2003. At that time, officials believed they would be able to store many of their records in Gray's attic. They soon discovered that fire safety restrictions prevented them from storing the files there. They moved the files back to McKinley and stored them in the building's attic later that same year, according to SETH Dean Sarah Irvine Belson.
SETH is still investigating and trying to determine who removed the boxes from the attic and when exactly they ended up in the hallway, Belson said.
While school officials investigate, they are implementing new security measures to protect SETH records. SETH has changed the locks on doors leading into storage spaces in the attic, Belson said. They are also making sure all current staff members know about the school's record policies and how to handle records in the future. Additionally, they are reviewing security clearances to make sure only people who are authorized to handle student records have access to them, she said.
SETH will continue to update concerned community members about the situation, Belson said.
"We want this investigation to be as open as possible," she said.
