Last night, I was sitting around with my family, watching a movie and minding my own business, with the intent of staying off the computer through the weekend. Then I get an email on my phone from a concerned graduate student informing her she has been dismissed from EMU, a student I knew for certain could not have possibly been kicked out of school because of bad performance. Here’s a screen shot of what that email looked like:
So, I fired off an angry message to the supposed sender of that email– Molly Weir, the associate director of advising– and I cc-ed a bunch of suits, assuming that this horrifying error was limited to one student. Then I get an email from another student, followed by emails from Walter Kraft and Susan Martin (and others) apologizing. Here’s what Martin wrote:
I deeply apologize for the incorrect email many of our students received this evening indicating they were dismissed from the University. This message was a terrible mistake and I regret the undue alarm and concern it caused. I care deeply about student success and for Eastern to send an alarming message to you indicating you were dismissed is an inexcusable mistake that I personally regret. We will investigate and determine why this happened and make sure it never happens again. Please disregard the message or any letter you may receive. Again, my heartfelt apology for this error.
And then a loyal reader sent me this article from the Freep, too.
Checking my email just a few moments ago this morning, I see another loyal reader sent me screen images of Facebook posts, including the screen shot of the dismissal letter I include above. These posts were subsequently removed from the EMU page, I assume because it’s not exactly good publicity. Anyway, this loyal reader claims that 7,700 students received this message.
WTF, EMU?
This loyal reader hypothesized this was a security breach of some sort, but this sure doesn’t look and feel like one of the spam messages. I am assuming that there will be an investigation and at least some public statement as to who did this and how they managed it, but none of the possible reasons for this are exactly comforting. If it was this big of a security breach which might also expose student records and all kinds of other confidential things– wow, that’s a big problem. But if it was some knucklehead in advising sending out messages through the automated GradesFirst and accidentally pushed the “fail everybody” button, that’s obviously kind of a problem too, right?
So, anyone know anything else? Any readers get dis’ed last night?
Update:
Here’s the email Walter Kraft sent around Saturday afternoon:
To EMU Students, Faculty and Staff,
First and foremost, we reiterate our sincere apologies for the email students received last night that indicated that due to academic issues they were in the process of being dismissed from Eastern. This was a terrible mistake and we know it caused undue concern for many.The purpose of this email is to update you on our investigation into the cause of the issue. The investigation is under way and we have not yet determined the exact cause, but there are some things we do know.
First, this was not a matter of a security breach, hacking or anything of that sort. There was no inappropriate access to any records or student information. We have confirmed that this was an operational error in our notification system from Academic Advising to students who are subject to dismissal for academic performance. We also have confirmed that Academic Advising prepared the message last night in order to notify approximately 100 students of academic performance issues. For some reason, which remains under investigation, the message went out to the entire student body. An outside company that we contract with for this notification process, GradesFirst, sent the dismissal message to the entire student body instead of the file of 100 or so students who were supposed to receive it. GradesFirst has offered an apology for its role in this matter.
Make no mistake about it, we consider this matter very serious and we take full responsibility. We will continue to investigate to determine exactly what went wrong and take whatever steps are necessary to make sure it never happens again. We will have additional updates as we learn more. Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions or concerns.Sincerely,WalterWalter Kraft
Vice President for Communications
102 Welch Hall
Eastern Michigan University
