Students received 2019-20 aid awards

Staff in the Office of Student Finances have completed the first round of 2019-20 financial aid packages. A total of 17,066 undergraduates and 4,125 graduate and professional students received aid award packages. They sent emails to students to let them know they can view their aid in MyU. They will continue to package aid awards as students continue to submit financial aid applications for 2019-20.

Use “directed” in directed research/study course titles in ECAS

Your department likely already does this, but please be sure to use the word “directed” in the course titles of your directed research or study courses in ECAS. The new Directed Activities Contract (currently in development) searches for the keyword “directed” in course titles and displays only those courses to students when they are filling out the contract. If a course is supposed to be for directed research or study, but does not have “directed” in the title, the student will not be able to select that course for their contract.

A summary of the Directed Activities Contract project appeared in a past issue of this newsletter. The contract will be available for all students in any college to use. We plan to launch the form this fall for spring 2020 registration. Please share this information with others in your department who create proposals in ECAS. If you have questions, contact oue@umn.edu.

FERPA Q&A

Question: I'm working with a student that was the victim of a crime. The student wants assurances that the other student involved in the crime is not going to be in her classes. As it turns out, that other student is no longer at the university. Can I tell her that?

Answer: Most likely, yes. Since enrollment status is directory information at the U of MN, we can state that the student is no longer enrolled. If the student has fully suppressed their information, we are unable to discuss current enrollment status and can only confirm that we do not have a record of the student in question.