Friday, April 25, 2003

Fearing a Serial Killer, Louisiana State Campus Halts Public Access to an Online Directory By DAN CARNEVALE Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge has removed directory listings from its Web site out of fear that the killer of five women in the area might use information from the listings to attack someone on the campus. Student, faculty, and staff directory information -- including names, phone numbers, home addresses, and e-mail addresses -- can now only be sought online if a person has password access to the university's Intranet. LSU officials pulled the plug on the public online directory last week to protect campus residents from a serial killer who police say has murdered five women since September 2001 -- including an LSU doctoral student last month. Four of the five women were living in Baton Rouge. The other victim lived in Lafayette, La. None were living on the LSU campus. Gene C. Sands, executive director of university relations at LSU, says he didn't know if the change would be permanent or whether the information would be made public again once the killer is caught. "These are actions that clearly wouldn't have been taken a couple years ago," Mr. Sands says. "It's just one more step you take." The university is also stepping up patrols by the LSU police and implementing plans to add more emergency telephones and surveillance cameras on the campus. Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of external relations for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, says it's "reasonably common" for institutions to have directory information publicly available on the Web. But some institutions have been known to keep the information password protected or to provide students' e-mail addresses only, he says. Students at LSU have always had the option of removing their information from the public directory, but they had to opt out themselves. LSU officials are considering whether to let students decide to make their information public again. Students are still able to choose to remove their information from the password-protected directory. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

SARS fears in China spur more class cancellations and foreign-student departures Kansas governor vetoes obscenity measure that could have cut university funds Beleaguered airline executive is late scratch at Saint Louis U. commencement U. of Washington receives $70-million from the Gates Foundation Spring commencement speakers are announced by 29 colleges Fearing a serial killer, Louisiana State campus halts public access to an online directory A Web site helps clarify the facets and effects of globalization