Boston College Will Stop Offering New Students E-Mail Accounts
Submitted by skassel on December 5, 2008 – 8:37 pm6 Comments
It’s a couple of weeks old, but you all know I’m behind.
Many students don’t even want a college e-mail address these days because they already have well-established digital identities before they arrive on campus. That’s the conclusion that officials at Boston College came to in a recent review of their online services. So the college recently decided to stop offering full e-mail accounts to incoming students starting next fall. [chronicle.com]
I find this interesting as I’ve been forwarding my VU email to my gmail account for years (after having, uh, trouble checking my email while at a conference). I know many of you are doing something similar, so I’m interested in hearing your reactions. Should VU do this?
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Personally, I like the “Villanova” tag. As a new faculty member, I feel like it gives me a more personal association. It also has a more professional appeal. However, I like the fact that you can easily forward to something such as your gmail account. Having choices is a good thing!
I agree that it is more important for you and me, but what student today does not have an existing email address, and online identity for that matter, before coming to campus? Does paying for the email infrastructure and associated problems (spam, maintenance, support, etc.) make sense? I’m wondering if the resources could be better used elsewhere.
I like the “Villanova tag” as well… I think it sounds more sophisticated and I’m not embarassed to give my address out. My email address I had in high school is far too cutesie and childish to give out now. Also, I really like that we can send emails out to our classes so easily. Taking this away would really complicate things. The spam support that Villanova uses is really great in comparision with other schools, and a lot of servers out there are not even close to being 100% spam free, which I think is a huge advantage that Villanova has over Yahoo!, Gmail, and MSN. I really like the email system we have and I would hate for them to stop offering it to us.
I’m with Nicole. While I might have had other email addresses before college, they were certainly not worthy of sending out professional emails–although I never had to in high school! I like the identity of the Villanova address so that right away companies who see my email know it’s not spam and take me seriously!
Getting my Villanova email address was exciting! I told everyone to no longer email me at my account which had “angel” in it haha but to instead send emails to a cool “Villanova” address.
I think this is a very bold move for Boston College. The only way I think this could potentially work in the future is if the universities/colleges at least give students the option to have an email address with their “tag”. That way, students like me and it seems like a lot of others, can move forward with a more professional email. Those that have a firstname.lastname email address already can decline the university tag if they so desire.
I agree with the idea of having a Villanova “tag” or a university tag in general. It definately allows you to be able to communicate professionally especially when it comes time to apply for jobs or graduate school. I like the way that Villanova assigns email addresses as firstname.lastname@villanova.edu. It makes it easier to email classmates or teachers that you did not previously have addresses for.