Student E-Mail Plan
 
 
I. Introduction
 
In August 2001 a task force was established to discuss the use of e-mail to communicate with prospective students, newly admitted students, current students, faculty, staff and alumni, and to establish recommendations for a better e-mail communication process. The task force presented four options to the management system directors group, who recommended one option to the Executive Council. Based on discussions at Executive Council, another task force was established to develop an implementation plan for the recommended option.

Input to the new UI e-mail policy was provided by ASUI, Graduate Student Association, Student Computer Advisory Committee, Faculty Council and the UI Executive Council. All of the groups approved the final policy.

The student e-mail plan calls for a UI assigned e-mail address for all degree-seeking and most non-degree students. The UI assigned e-mail address will not change during the student's career at UI. The e-mail address will be easily available for faculty to communicate with students, students to communicate with faculty, as well as to communicate for administrative functions, such as registration, financial aid, and student accounts.

If a student is assigned a UI e-mail address, will be the "official" mean of electronic communication for university business. Students will also benefit by acquiring an e-mail account with very similar functionalities and 10-times the storage space of commercial e-mail providers, all at no extra cost to the student. Students who manage multiple e-mail addresses will also have the benefit of one electronic inbox where they will be certain they will receive all official communication from the UI.

II. Policy Statement

A. University of Idaho Student E-Mail. A University assigned student e-mail account shall be the University's official means of e-mail communication with any student required to have a UI e-mail account. Students are responsible for all information sent to them via their University assigned e-mail account. Students would be allowed to forward their UI e-mail to another UI run e-mail account (must end in uidaho.edu).

B. Reason For Policy. The University of Idaho provides most students with an e-mail account upon the student's admission to the institution. This account is free of charge and currently is active as long as the student remains active. Increasingly, e-mail is becoming the primary mode of communication between students and the University. The information distributed via e-mail varies from faculty class communications to financial aid award notices.

Some students do not use their University assigned e-mail account. Other students forward their University e-mail account to an alternative account (i.e., America Online, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.). When students do not use their University assigned e-mail account, vital information is often not conveyed as the e-mail is unopened or the associated attachment is not forwarded.

It is imperative that students understand that a majority of information will be communicated to them via their University assigned account while they are students. To better serve our students, upon admission students are informed that their University assigned e-mail account is the primary means of communication from the University community and that they will be held responsible for the information in the e-mail.

III. What students get UI e-mail accounts?

Students who are admitted to and attend the University of Idaho in the State of Idaho as a degree-seeking or non-degree seeking student will receive a UI e-mail address. Non-degree students who are not taking classes in the State of Idaho or who are distance education students may continue to use a personal address for e-mail, or upon request by their instructor or the student may be assigned a uidaho.edu alias. If an alias account is requested, the students will only have the option to forward their alias to a preferred personal e-mail. This could be done by visiting support.uidaho.edu. Banner will record their alias and students will be informed of their need to connect a non-UI e-mail forwarding address to the alias.  If an alias account is not requested, these non-degree, non-resident students may choose their personal e-mail accounts as their preferred email account on Banner, and may update this information as it changes.

IV. Assigning e-mail addresses to students

It is the intent of this process to assign UI e-mail addresses to students at the time of admission. The Admissions Office will work with ITS to establish a process where student e-mail addresses will be assigned upon admission so students can activate their accounts prior to arriving on campus.

Students in the recruitment database who have not been admitted will still have the opportunity to submit their personal e-mail address for use in recruitment and other correspondence until the time they are admitted. At the time of admission we will inform the students of the need to use the UI assigned e-mail address, if it is required for them.  For those students, UI e-mail correspondence will then be sent only to the UI assigned e-mail address, and the previous preferred e-mail address will still be in the Banner system but will no longer be marked as preferred.

If a new student is not enrolled at the 10th day of class and their admission has not been deferred to a future term, the UI e-mail address will be invalidated. 

This plan was implemented July 1, 2003. If you would like more information on this plan please click here for FAQ's.