We appreciate your visit to the official website of Centenary College of Louisiana. We respect your privacy and, except in cases where you elect to supply personal information via a web form, we do not collect personal information about you. In cases where you do share personal information with us via a web form, we do not share that information with outside entities, except in cases where we are compelled to do so by law or where we utilize third party services to facilitate our communication with you.
In cases where we are bound by law to share information and it is legal for us to notify you of law enforcement information requests, we will make due effort to inform you.
What Non-personal Information is Collected?
As visitors navigate our website, we do automatically take note of certain non-personal, technical details of the visit. Such information is commonly collected in automatic fashion by most web servers as a means of tracking trends in site traffic. Information that may be collected and compiled into aggregate reports can include:
- IP address (a string of 4-6 numbers that give you an "address" within the Internet), implying the geographic locale and domain name of your Internet Service Provider
- type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc)
- basic capabilities of browser and computer used to access the site (e.g., screen resolution, Flash capabilities, window size, etc)
- web address of referring web sites (e.g., if you reached centenary.edu from a google search, we will know that a visitor came to use via google.com)
In addition, records are compiled on the basis of the timing of website visits, the specific pages accessed, the order of pages visited, and, where possible, whether or not a visitor is a repeat visitor. Again, any information collected is not tied to personal identity and is used only for the internal analysis of aggregate traffic patterns across the site. Such patterns provide insight as to how we may improve the website over time.
Much of the non-personal traffic oriented data collected may be stored and compiled into reports by a third-party traffic analysis service provider that we utilize, Google Analytics. Note that Google's published privacy policy per se applies to Centenary's account with Google, not your own. As a visitor to centenary.edu, you have no relationship with Google that is mediated by us.
The terms of service agreement under which Google Analytics operates, however, does provide for the privacy protection of Internet users whose non-personal traffic date is utilized in Analytics reporting. Specifically, the Analytics TOS requires that:
You [Centenary] will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users, nor will You (or will You allow any third party to) associate any data gathered from Your website(s) (or such third parties' website(s)) with any personally identifying information from any source as part of Your use (or such third parties' use) of the Service.
This provision is in line with our own privacy policy, of course, and is in the interest of protecting your privacy.
Cookies
Centenary.edu does use cookies for a number of purposes, including the facilitation of traffic analysis. For website visitors who are not faculty, staff, or students of the College, cookies are primarily used in conjunction with tracking non-personal information in order to assess use and repeated use patterns across the site (as detailed above).
Additionally, when web forms are used, cookies may be utilized to help track "session" information. That is, for the duration of your form use, a cookie is used to remember a unique, non-personal code that identifies your interaction with a form. As you navigate the form, session tracking is used to prevent you from having to re-enter your information. Occasionally, form cookies may directly store form information — also for the purposes of easing form interactions.
Note that browsers lock down cookies at a domain level; information stored in cookies associated with centenary.edu are only utilized when you are actually visiting centenary.edu. Centenary cannot assume responsibility for the security integrity of your personal computer however, so we generally utilize cookies only to temporarily store information, creating cookies that expire when you close your browser.
For users who are faculty, staff, or students of the college, cookies are also used in conjunction with login to private areas of the site. Traffic to access-controlled areas of the site is not tracked at an individual level, except in cases where Centenary users are explicitly using a web form designed to track such information for purposes of completing college work.
Javascript
We use javascript throughout the site, primarily to achieve certain layout and interactive effects on pages, including, but not limited to, web forms. Executing javascript is "sandboxed" by your browser and has no access to information outside of your browser — or even across different websites within your browser. It is possible for you to explicitly grant javacript such rights in certain scenarios, such as web forms that allow you to select a file from your computer to be uploaded to centenary.edu.
Javascript is also used in conjunction with Google Analytics, as a means of setting cookie information that helps facilitate traffic analysis.
Outside Addresses
Across our website, we provide links to many non-centenary.edu resources. Outside websites are not bound by any of our privacy policies and we, of course, cannot take responsibility for the content or policies of other entities.
SSL
Some web forms, including our donation form are hosted through the SSL encrypted arm of our website, bearing the address https://apps.centenary.edu. Where applicable, Centenary uses secure 128-bit encryption to protect sensitive information.
In cases where credit card information is entered through our donation form, credit card numbers are encrypted and passed directly to the payment processing provider for authorization. Centenary does not directly view, utilize, nor store the encrypted credit card numbers submitted via our donation form.
Service Specific Issues
In the case of fund-raising conducted by the Development Office, you have the right to "opt-out" of certain of our uses of your personal information regardless of how it was obtained. For example, you may elect to opt out of receiving promotional correspondence from Centenary College. You may make this request by sending an e-mail to donor@centenary.edu. In this e-mail, please identify which kinds of promotions you are referring to (or all of them) and say whether (i) you would like to opt-out of receiving promotional correspondence (including, for example, e-mail offers) in general, or just via e-mail, postal mail, short message service, instant messaging, and/or by phone; and/or (ii) you would like to opt-out of certain e-newsletters or correspondence, and, if so, which ones. Please understand that if you opt-out of receiving promotional e-mails or SMS from Centenary, we may still, under certain limited scenarios, contact you by e-mail or SMS in connection with your affiliation with us or to provide you with important information about Centenary.
Questions
If you have questions or concerns about the centenary.edu privacy policy, you can contact the Web Developer at webdev@centenary.edu.