At Ohio State University I recently discovered that all faculty and staff evaluations are destroyed after five years, even though deliberations for full professor are to include the person's entire career.  Individual annual faculty reports, however, are retained, even after retirement or leaving the University.  

Recently, I tried to determine whether a person had actually completed his M.A. at a certain small college.  Starting with the library I was told that I could get the information from the registrar but would need the persons social security number or full date of birth.  Instead, I called the Anthro dept and they produced a 25 year old letter stating that the student was not going to finish a thesis due to lack of interest.

Moral: it may depend upon who you ask but information of this type is getting harder and harder to obtain, and more and more of it is simply being dumped.  Space is money.

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron May <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, January 5, 2008 5:11 am
Subject: Re: Button bibliography

> Well, I think everyone on the list would be interested to know 
> that I  
> recently researched the life of Dorothy R. Harvey, the first chair 
> of the Botany  
> Department at San Diego State and faculty from 1924 through 1961. 
> When I called  
> the Library Special Collections, Administration, and President's 
> Office, I  
> learned the university president in the 1980s ordered all records 
> of all 
> faculty  destroyed. There is nothing that survives from all those 
> faculty members 
> before  his tenure, including the sacrosanct academic files. I was 
> shocked to 
> learn of  this travesty to history.
> 
> Ron May
> Legacy 106, Inc.
> 
> 
> In a message dated 1/4/2008 6:36:55 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
> [log in to unmask] writes:
> 
> He was  the husband of Jane Ford Adams and taught at the State 
> College 
> according to  the 1930 census.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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>