COLLEGES SEEK POLICY ON TELLING PARENTS OF STUDENTS IN TROUBLE

Most parents of college students get plenty of campus-related information
- -- newsletters, solicitations, the inevitable bills. But if the student
fails a slew of courses, attempts suicide or is hospitalized after a
drinking binge, mom and dad may be kept in the dark.

Of the many dilemmas confronting colleges today, few are as vexing -- or
potentially serious -- as parental notification. A case in point is the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, target of a $27 million lawsuit by
parents who say they should have been warned of their daughter's worsening
mental health before she committed suicide in 2000.

In less dramatic form, college administrators nationwide often have to
balance a student's privacy rights against parents' desire to know if their
child is in trouble.

''The universities are finding themselves under fire from both sides, one
saying we're doing too little, the other saying we're doing too much,''
said Rick Olshak, an Illinois State University official and outgoing
president of the Association for Student Judicial Affairs.

Under a 1974 federal privacy act, most colleges stopped notifying parents
about the academic, disciplinary and health problems of their children.

Congress amended the law in 1998 to specify that administrators could tell
parents about alcohol and drug offenses committed by students under 21.
Since then, scores of colleges have adopted notification policies, often
despite opposition from student government bodies.

Many schools notify parents only about serious incidents in which health
and safety are at risk, and do not report routine cases of underage
drinking. At the University of Delaware, however, parents are notified of
every alcohol and drug infraction, and administrators say violations have
dropped markedly.

''Parents are often in a position to influence students in ways that the
institution is not,'' said John Bishop, Delaware's vice president for
counseling and student development.

While some colleges' notification policies seem aimed at reducing
vulnerability to lawsuits, Delaware's motivation was to curb heavy
drinking, Bishop said.

''Our students now tell anyone who asks that the 'party school' reputation
no longer applies,'' Bishop said. ''Some are mourning the loss ... but
we're getting more applications from better students than ever before.''

Delaware is praised as an exception to the norm by Jeffrey Levy, who became
an advocate for parental notification after his son, Jonathan, died in a
1997 drunken driving accident while attending Radford University in
Virginia. Levy learned only after the crash that Jonathan had several
run-ins with school officials for drinking violations.

Howard and Connie Clery of Bryn Mawr, Pa., who founded the advocacy group
Security on Campus after their daughter was raped and murdered at Lehigh
University, say many colleges balk at notification because of embarrassment
over widespread drinking.

''They don't want to tell parents that kids are in the emergency wards
every weekend getting their stomachs pumped out,'' Howard Clery said.

While Delaware made about 1,400 notifications in the first year of its
policy, other schools consider notification a last resort.

Bill Riley, dean of students at the University of Illinois, said only about
10 families were contacted during the first year of a new policy calling
for notification if an infraction jeopardizes someone's health or safety.
The policy is designed as a tool to combat substance abuse, not as a
punitive measure, Riley said.

Critics of parental notification include the Philadelphia-based Foundation
for Individual Rights in Education. Its executive director, Thor
Halvorssen, says colleges have been too hasty in undermining student privacy.

''Notification policies send a message that infantilizes young adults,''
Halvorssen said. ''Their contemporaries in the military or in factories,
they're adults, but students aren't? We've got to resist this urge that
students must be supervised.''

Montana State University is among the still-sizable group of schools
without a notification policy.

''Individual autonomy rules here,'' said Jim Mitchell, student health
director at the Bozeman, Mont., campus. ''Students are held accountable,
but they're treated as adults.''

One problem with rigid notification policies, Mitchell said, is that they
might deter a student from seeking medical help after alcohol or drug abuse.

''If going to an emergency center for intoxication is a trigger for
parental notification, that's really dangerous,'' he said.

Mitchell also said colleges may misunderstand family dynamics.

''You can't assume the relationship is always wonderful,'' he said.
''Sometimes you can really do harm to a student by involving parents.''

At MIT, where the parents of Elizabeth Shin have sued, President Charles
Vest said the school felt obligated to protect the confidentiality of
Shin's medical records. He expressed support for the staff members who
dealt with her.

''The quandary that they face is balancing students' legal and medical
privacy rights with the obvious interests of parents in knowing how their
sons and daughters are doing,'' Vest wrote to the MIT community last week
(Feb. 4). ''This quandary is worked through on a case-by-case basis by
professional judgment of how best to help each student.''