Someone made off with a print-out of personal information about Nassau Community College's entire student body, more than 21,000 students, prompting the college to offer to pay for credit monitoring services for students for one year.
College officials also have notified several law enforcement agencies about the apparent theft of the list.
Reginald Tuggle, college spokesman, said the list went missing last Tuesday. Tuggle said an administrative assistant in the college's Student Activities Office, who was authorized to use the list, was cross-checking the names of individuals involved in various student activities against the master list of students registered at the college.
Tuggle said the assistant left her desk in the College Center Building for about 10 minutes. When she returned, the list was gone. The list contained students' names, addresses, Social Security Numbers, and phone numbers, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County Police spokesman. He said the college informed the police Nov. 28 about the missing computer list. The incident is being investigated by the Third Squad, Repalone said.
Tuggle said the college also notified the Long Island offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security. Representatives of those agencies could not be immediately reached.
"We take the confidentiality of our students and staff very seriously," Tuggle said. "We are shocked and concerned by this." Tuggle said the college's Board of trustees plans to meet Tuesday night to work out the details of how students can sign up for the credit monitoring the college will provide, and determine how to pay for it.