Records Management

Records Retention and Disposition at The State University of New York at Fredonia

In accordance with Section 57.05 of the NYS Arts and Cultural Affairs Law, official records of the state-operated campuses of the State University of New York and SUNY System Administration must be retained and may not be destroyed unless pursuant to applicable records retention schedules.  This includes the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Information that no longer serves a legal, operational, or historic value to Fredonia should be disposed of in accordance with the SUNY Records Retention Schedules. 

SUNY's Records Retention and Disposition Policy (Policy 6609) codifies the retention periods for the various records housed by SUNY campuses, including Fredonia.  SUNY Policy 6609 has a series of appendices (available through the policy and also via the SUNY Compliance webpage) that lists all the various records, and the specific period that a campus must retain them, and what records must be kept permanently.  This SUNY policy and appendices has been pre-approved by State Archives and the Office of the State Comptroller. When the SUNY Schedule does not cover a particular record, Fredonia is to defer to the New York State General Schedule for the proper retention period.

Fredonia shall utilize appropriate means to ensure compliance with the applicable schedules and retention periods. Records that have reached the end of their retention period shall be destroyed by appropriate means depending on the contents and nature of the records giving due consideration to the confidentiality of the information contained therein. Notification that the records are subject to a litigation hold or are otherwise relevant to a legal action or audit shall result in suspension of routine destruction activities until the records are no longer needed as determined by University Counsel.

Campus departments are required to designate a Records Management Liaison (RML) in their respective department(s). The department RML must create and maintain a master list of all records to which their department has custodianship. RML's will work directly with Amy Beers, Campus Records Management Officer, to assure proper retention and disposition of their records.

Records eligible for disposal should be destroyed in a secure manner. Preferred methods of destruction include shredding and thermal destruction. Fredonia thermally destroys records twice per year (typically in June and January). Campus notice of these thermal destruction dates is sent to all campus faculty and staff from University Services via e-mail.

Campus departments are required to submit a Records Disposition Log to Amy Beers, Record Management Officer at Amy.Beers@fredonia.edu OR via interoffice mail to Amy Beers at 407 Maytum Hall anytime original records are destroyed. 

REMINDER: No records should be retained at Fredonia past their retention period unless they still serve a LEGAL, OPERATIONAL, or HISTORIC value to the institution.

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