E-mail options

In response to student concerns and complaints regarding MSU’s e-mail system, the university is considering plans to either update the system or get rid of the system completely, allowing students to choose their own third-party e-mail provider.

While no decisions have been made yet, the second option would allow students to use their own e-mail service, but provide them with an “@msu.edu” address that would serve as a forwarding address.

Source: David Gift, vice provost for libraries, computers and technology

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Lack of storage, basic text features and a clunky interface — these are some of the complaints leveled against MSU’s e-mail system. But all of those issues could disappear if plans being explored by university officials to overhaul or eliminate the system come to fruition.

“We want to upgrade the university’s e-mail system, and we’re still examining a number of options to do that,” said David Gift, vice provost for libraries, computing and technology.

To do this, the university is looking at various options. One way, Gift said, would be an overhaul of the system, providing a different interface, HTML support and more memory. But the scale of such an undertaking comes with its own set of problems, Gift said.

“Today we have over 175,000 active accounts,” he said. “There is a tremendous load on these programs.”

Gift said the high number of addresses partially is because of graduates and retired faculty who continue to use their e-mail addresses, which puts stress on the system.

The university also is considering eliminating e-mail for students while maintaining addresses for faculty and staff, Gift said.

Students would provide the university with an e-mail address from a free e-mail provider of their choice — such as Google’s Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. The university would then assign students an “@msu.edu” address that would route mail to their individual accounts.

Eliminating student e-mail addresses would lower the number of MSU-supported mailboxes to between 20,000 and 30,000, which would be more manageable, Gift said.

While he said no decisions have been made and there wouldn’t be an official announcement this school year, Gift said any decision would provide enough time for students to adjust.

The plan to eliminate the system for students would save both the university and students money, said Michael Leahy, ASMSU’s Student Assembly chairperson.

“Rather than spend a lot of money to update our e-mail, which still wouldn’t be up to Gmail standards, we’d prefer simply letting people pick their own e-mail,” Leahy said.

International relations sophomore Rachel Funk said she thought it might be a better idea for the university to ditch the system completely.

“It’s terrible. It’s completely atrocious,” Funk said. “It’s completely outdated. There are no special features. You can’t do bold, you can’t do italics, you can’t do anything that even the most basic e-mail services provide.”

Published on Sunday, March 23, 2008