Hamilton students and faculty receive a considerable number of emails each day from student groups, administrators, and other members of the community. Due to the high number of emails, it can be challenging for students to sift through a variety of messages and identify the ones that are important to them.
Last fall, the College formed a working group to consider and recommend a solution to the mass email issue.
Maureen Scoones, Associate Director of IT Process Improvement & Education, and Sarah Gyurina ’22, a LITS student ambassador, have worked closely together to lead this discussion. Student Assembly recently discussed these proposals with Scoones and Gyurina before the two presented them to the administration.
“The new [proposed] policies really focus on allowing students to gain better control over their Hamilton Gmail account — managing people, emails from clubs, and general organization,” said Gyurina.
The recommendations suggest requiring student groups to post notices to their own organizational listservs instead of sending them to the EVENTS-ALL and NOTICES-ALL listservs as they do now. Specific requests to send notices to the entire campus will require approval by Student Assembly.
Student clubs and activities will also be encouraged to submit events with descriptions to 25Live, which would then include those events in a comprehensive daily events email sent to campus.
To that end, Gyurina has created a new and improved prototype of the current daily events email.
Minh To, the LITS liaison to Student Assembly, said the changes to daily email “will hopefully become a new platform for clubs to remind the student body about their repeated events (i.e. language tables, weekly club meetings, etc.).”
On Feb. 4, Student Assembly discussed the proposed policies and recommended certain changes. Class Representative Ben Rhind ’19 suggested that clubs and other student organizations have a grace period in which they can send weekly emails about their clubs so that new students have the opportunity to learn more about clubs and their meeting times.
In response to this suggestion, the working group said they may add a new policy giving clubs one month to send out mass emails. After that time, clubs will be expected to send their weekly meeting emails only to their individual listservs.
The working group has also been coordinating with the language departments to cut back on the number of all-campus emails about events like the weekly language tables they host.
According to Scoones, the working group plans to have the new policies approved by the administration and in place by the beginning of the next academic year. Once these policies are enacted, said To, the College will schedule training for club representatives to learn about the appropriate use of email and how the daily events email will work.
The new policies will also be distributed to all students at the beginning of the next school year. A LITS administrator will monitor and enforce the usage of listserv emails once the policies are in place.
If a violation is identified, “depending on the violation, a club will face consequences that can range from a warning to loss of their access to listservs,” said To.
Some students say they are in favor of decreasing the number of emails they receive.
“I appreciate these new policies because of the sheer number of emails I receive from clubs, departments, and events I am not involved with at Hamilton,” said Kyra Clark ’22. “On the other hand, I recognize the need for individuals and organizations to try and extend their reach to a broader variety students at Hamilton.
“Nonetheless, I definitely could use less emails from Hamilton clubs in my inbox — it’s overwhelming.”
