Retention and disposition of official records of the SUNY campuses are governed by the New York State Arts and Cultural Affairs Law. Official records must be retained and disposed of in compliance with two schedules:
- State University of New York Records Retention and Disposition Schedule ("the SUNY Schedule") for education and SUNY-specific records
- General Retention and Disposition Schedule ("the general schedule") for New York State government records
Please follow these steps to comply with SUNY's policy on records retention and disposition:
- Understand what materials records are and retain them per the applicable schedules. (You may wish to use the inventory worksheet provided by NYS Archives to determine what records are in your files.)
- On an annual basis, identify records in your area that may be ready for disposition.
- Consult the SUNY Schedule or General Schedule to confirm that disposition is called for. Identify records that have exceeded their minimum retention periods.
- Document the records you plan to dispose of using the Certificate of Destruction and obtain supervisory approval.
- Submit the original Certificate of Destruction to the campus's Records Management Officer and keep a copy for your records. Certificates of Destruction should be submitted by July 15 each year, reflecting records of destruction activities during the preceding academic year.
- Using a permanent method of destruction (shredding), dispose of the records that have exceeded their retention periods. The Office of Property Control and Sustainable Programs can assist with shredding for large quantities of records.
For help in determining whether your records contain archival material that must be maintained permanently, please contact the College Archivist. For other questions about records retention and disposition, please contact the Coordinator for Records Retention and Disposition.