Public Records: Your Responsibilities as a Public Employee

Public Records: Your Responsibilities as a Public Employee

All UMass Amherst employees are Public Employees. Public employees include all faculty, staff, and student employees whether full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary, grant-funded, state-funded, unionized and/or non-unit.

In your role as a Public Employee, every record you create or receive is a public record and is eligible for public disclosure unless a specific statutory exemption permits or requires it to be withheld. This includes all emails sent from or received by your UMass email address. It also includes emails sent from or received by non-UMass email addresses if university business is discussed in the email. This is also true for all text and chats that discuss university business.

Please reference the UMass Amherst Records Guidelines & Policies webpage for frequently asked questions related to this policy.