Wesley College administrator accidently e-mailed list of failing students to entire student body

[Liberal_in_LA]

College E-mails List of Failing Students to Classmates
Updated: Oct 28, 2010 4:27 AM PDT

(Photo: WBOC)
DOVER, Del.- An administrator at Wesley College in Dover has accidentally e-mailed to the entire student body the names of students who are in danger of failing out of school.

The e-mail was supposed to be private, but on Monday an administrator sent approximately 2,400 students a list of failing classmates. The school said only about a dozen students on campus actually read the email, before the school deleted it from the students' inboxes.

Eric Nelson, vice president of finance for Wesley College, said, "It was an accident, nothing willful or wanting. It was just an oversight. Mistakes happen."

Nelson said the school has apologized to the students on the list. Still, some students called the error unacceptable.

"I think it's just ridiculous. No one wants to be embarrassed like that. You can't apologize for that really," said freshman Savon Small.


http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=13397150

[Hassin Bin Sober]

1. Does "recall" even work? The few times I've seen it attempted on my system I could still ...

... read the original email.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. me too! And if a few students opened it, they can forward to others.

[Lasher]

4. As in other aspects of life, there is no effective un-fuckup button for email.

You just cannot un-ring a bell.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. yup!

[Xipe Totec]

3. Epic Fail nt

[Quantess]

5. Time to throw a frat house party, Animal House style.

Toga party.

[Angry Dragon]

12. Hail Caesar

[petronius]

6. Well, that's a huge screw-up. We occasionally get well-meaning requests from entities

on campus for lists of our borderline students - this is one of the reasons why I never respond. Despite all the lip-service paid to confidentiality on our campus (and probably at Wesley too) the actual effort and understanding of the topic is very low.

The other funny thing that comes to mind is that some of those failing students probably believe that the college is now obligated to not fail them out, to compensate for the error...

[LiberalFighter]

8. Isn't there a way that they can password sensitive material?

[Xipe Totec]

10. It probably is password protected, and this is the guy that HAS the password nt

[bluedigger]

9. Meh.

Their absence next semester probably would have been noted by their former classmates.

[Kalyke]

11. Looks like Wesley College may be in serious trouble:

PENALTIES FOR VIOLATING the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

The Family Policy Compliance Office reviews and investigates complaints of violations of FERPA. The penalty for violating FERPA is loss of all federal funding, including grants and financial aid.

Yes, accidents happen, but this was willful - not by the administrator who mailed it out - but by the college who is obviously NOT providing proper security and compliance training to its staff.

(I work in network security and compliance - making this type of mistake is just STUPID!)