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PLEASE NOTE:
1. Legal Holds: Do not follow the Records Retention Schedule to destroy records that are currently part of--or you are aware that they are going to be part of--any legal action or proceeding, litigation, audit, investigation, or review. For more information, consult the Legal Hold Policy and Procedures, or contact the Office of the General Counsel.

2. Personal Information: Some records contain personally identifiable or sensitive information (social security numbers, account numbers, personal data, proprietary university data, etc), and must be destroyed securely by shredding, incinerating, pulping, or pulverization. Please contact the University Records Manager if you need assistance with proper destruction of these records. For more information on information security, consult Suffolk University's Written Information Security Program.

3. Offsite Records Storage: Some records will become inactive before they are eligible for destruction or transfer to the Archives. Inactive records that must be retained for two years or more should be transferred to offsite storage. The facility's primary responsibility is to serve the storage and retrieval needs of Suffolk's libraries, archives, departments, and offices. Active records, however, should not be sent offsite where their retrieval incurs a charge. If you would like to transfer records to offsite storage, please refer to the detailed instructions on the Records Management web page, or contact the Records Manager for assistance.

4. Record Destruction: Once a record has reached its required retention date, please request authorization for destruction and document your actions before destroying any records, you must complete a Document Destruction Form, which must be endorsed by your Department Head, and submitting it to the Records Manager. Records that do not contain Personal Information can be recycled or otherwise disposed of in your office. For records that contain Personal Information, please contact the Records Manager to arrange for secure onsite or offsite destruction. In both cases, the Records Manager will permanently maintain the Document Destruction Form in the University Archives.

5. Special Schedules: If you don't see your record type listed in the Schedule, please contact the University Records Manager. Some functions are specific or unique to a particular office, and these activities generate records that have not yet been scheduled or for another reason have been left out of the general Schedule.

6. Electronic Records: Please note that this schedule applies to all records, regardless of form. This includes paper, electronic, and email records. If a paper record is destroyed according to the schedule, any electronic versions of the record must be destroyed as well, and vice-versa. If you are digitizing records, the original paper record can be destroyed when no longer needed, as long as the electronic version is retained for the required period of time.