Acting Provost Frances Bronet has put new rules in place to emphasize the university’s commitment to the privacy of student counseling records.

Under the new rules, counseling records will remain strictly confidential and will not be available to anyone other than the student and his or her counselor except under very limited circumstances. Records will be released only when a student signs a written release, a court orders the release or the therapist needs the records to coordinate treatment with others, prevent harm to the student or others, or provide anonymous aggregate information for use in sexual assault statistics.

In addition, Bronet is forming a committee of licensed counselors, faculty, the general counsel and staff to propose new or better policies on protecting psychological or medical records for any university department. A draft of the policies will be shared with the university community in April.

For the complete message, visit  the provost’s website.