Editor,
On more than one occasion, I stopped by the one-stop system, located in the old Financial Aid office, to take care of my business involving the admissions, financial aid and registrar's offices. While I admit the one-stop system adds speed and accessibility of records in a central location, I also see a larger problem developing: privacy.
Over several visits, I have noticed this one-stop system is violating UNM students' and their parents' privacy by making it too easy for other people to overhear and capture personal information involving everything you can imagine. I overheard staff - probably to no fault of their own because they are at the mercy of the one-stop office setup - giving out private information, and students, uncomfortably, relaying their ID numbers, birth dates, incomes, addresses, health problems, grades, etc., to the staff.
This information could easily be overheard because we have no choice but to sit right next to other students without partitions or office walls or even space to divide the conversations. In fact, in the one-stop office there is a counter where five students and five staff members all share this information within a space of a little more than 10 feet. Even Southwest Airlines provides more room.
I have complained and commented on these conditions, but the only answer is to fill out a comment card, and one supervisor proceeded to tell me, almost dismissively, that you can't have the speed of the one-stop and privacy at the same time. Ridiculous. He proceeded to say that this is what the UNM students wanted, and in a survey, they wanted to have a speedy system.
I don't remember that survey, and I could guess it didn't include the privacy vs. speedy service question. I don't believe that the decision-making bodies of Enrollment Management have fully thought this system through. Which, I might add, seems to be the disturbing general trend happening here at UNM where decisions are being made without fully appreciating the opinions and placing a value on the judgments of students and staff.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
In their quest to create this one-stop system, administrators have forgotten that they need to serve the customer - which, in this case, happens to be the student and parent - by providing the best customer relations and service possible. This problem of privacy should be no different if the discussion is about medical records, credit information, student records, Social Security numbers and employment records, and should be handled properly in situations where disclosure could be damaging to the student or parent.
We have probably heard more than one horror story involving disclosure of information or identity theft, and UNM should not give criminals an opportunity to ruin the lives of college students who are at the start of their lives. I know there are laws out there to protect us and our private information, and I'm sure UNM may retort that no laws are being violated with the one-stop system, but I again state that the customer must be served well.
I suggest a simple solution: add partitions or use offices to help the students and staff have a little more privacy during conversations, and please add a little space in between.
Eric Ross
UNM student
