4 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005
PRIVACY
E-Mail blunder
Students named in mass mailing
BY ASHLEY MICHAELS amichaels@kansan.com KANSAN STAFF WRITER
The University of Kansas Office of Student Financial Aid slipped up last week with just one click of a mouse.
Each semester the financial aid office sends out an e-mail regarding student status. This e-mail was sent to 119 students notifying them that they were at risk of losing their financial aid because they had failed classes.
The e-mail was supposed to be sent individually to each of the 119 students. Instead, each student on the list received the e-mail inclusive with the list of the other 118 students who also failed their classes and were in danger of losing financial aid. The list of students was included in the e-mail as part of the e-mail address list.
"It was a low-tech error in a high-tech environment," said Todd Cohen, associate director of University Relations. "It was a case of someone hitting 'Reply All' instead of 'Reply,' not to make light of the situation."
This particular incident is a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects the privacy of student education records, Cohen said.
The e-mail was sent on June 20, and financial aid office employees recognized the mistake on June 21. They then sent out an e-mail apologizing to all the students expressing their deepest regrets and assuring them that steps would be taken to prevent this from happening in the future, Cohen said.
"That was a mistake, it should have been done much more privately," Cohen said. "It was a completely unintentional, inadvertent mistake."
Cohen said he was not at liberty to say who sent the e-mail or what actions would be taken toward the individual, but he said the staff would revisit FERPA and would be trained to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
"It was an individual mistake, an easily-made error, but it will serve as a reminder to the rest of the staff that we have to pay more attention to how things are transmitted," Cohen said.
— Edited by Erin M. Droste
DEATH
KU grad student found dead
BY LIZ NARTOWICZ
lnartowicz@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
Lawrence police officers found the body of University of Kansas graduate student Yihong Zhu in his apartment June 14.
Lawrence police were called to Meadowbrook Apartments, UU Britney Place, to check on Zhu because he had not been seen or paid his rent.
After entering Zhu's apartment with the help of Meadowbrook management, police saw a handmade sign that warned a hazardous chemical might be present.
The Hazardous Materials Unit of Douglas County Fire and Medical was called in to assist.
The unit found Zhu's body while searching for hazardous chemicals. No hazardous chemicals were found.
An investigation into Zhu's death is in progress. Erik Mitchell, Frontier Forensics coroner, performed an autopsy on Zhu last week to determine the cause of death. Sergeant Dan Ward of the Lawrence
Police Department said Mitchell was waiting for the toxicology report before he determined the cause. Ward said so far there was no sign of foul play.
Zhu
Zhu, 29, was born in Qiqihar in Heilongjian Province China.
He graduated from Nankai University in Tianjin, China in 1999. Zhu enrolled in the University of Kansas in the fall of 2000. As a student of molecular biosciences, Zhu worked with Matthew Buechner, assistant professor of molecular biosciences.
"Yihong was a little shy. He liked to work by himself," Buechner said. "But he was friendly, well-liked and very bright."
In 2002 Zhu transferred labs and worked under Krzysztof Kuczera, associate professor of molecular biosciences. Kuczera said Zhu was a hard worker who was interested and focused
on his learning and research.
In Kuczera's lab, Zhu worked on computer representations of molecules. Zhu mainly kept to himself while at work, Kuczera said.
Feng He, who works under Mark Richter, professor of molecular biosciences, met Zhu while working in the labs three years ago. He said he considered Zhu a friend but rarely saw him.
"I've seen him only 10 times in the last three years,' He said.
He is serving as the translator for Zhu's parents, who speak Mandarin Chinese. Zhu's parents will arrive late this week or early next week and have asked the He not to comment on Zhu's death.
Kuczera said although he was not particularly close to Zhu, Zhu confided in him that he would return to China early this summer.
Kuczera said Zhu would return home because of health problems. Kuczera would not comment on Zhu's health problems.
Edited by Erin M. Droste