Defining the “all-student”
The “all-student” email is back. And by “all-student” I mean the annoying yet sometimes almost acceptable-if-you’re-in-on-the-joke way that students send an email to the entirety of the student population by entering in every name of every student in alphabetical order. And don’t forget to reply-all. There exists formal all-student email privileges which exist for a handful of people that visit your inbox regularly: Bobby Joe Smith ’09, Jennifer Herrera of OIPD, Office of the President, Dean of the College, Jyoti Daniere of Health and Wellness, Julie Hoyenski of Facilities. But when students circumvent that formal system of permission, all hell breaks loose. At larger schools, this is impossible for practical reasons. At smaller schools, it flies because the chances that you know the emailer are higher. But at Middlebury, the school is big enough that self-regulation seems out of grasp and small enough to let it continue unchecked.
The Ceramics Club spammed students via an “all-student” email Monday announcing the opening of the Ceramics Club at 75 Adirondack View (the road Tavern and Palana are on). But despite the email faux pas, it’s a semi-legit announcement that marks the beginning for an organization that deserves some publicity. But when one student puts in the work of adding every student name to an email, other students “benefit” by being able to copy and paste those names into other emails.
Emily Núñez who reps EF College Breaks for Midd spammed students in such a way that makes our browsers crash under the sheer size of the email. She brought on the wrath of Sam Libby ’09.5 who writes in an equally bad reply-all, “There’s a reason that no one is supposed to have access to all-student emails. This is an excellent example. Please don’t use this list, Emily Nuñez. We get enough unwanted solicitation every day.”
But this brings up the point that our email-heavy system of communication is killing us softly and there is not a unified way to reduce this unwanted email. We need mailing lists that are opt-in/opt-out. We need a single online announcement space with rotating headlines that is in an online space that we already use frequently. We need one daily all-student email that links to text on the web instead of spelling it all out, and students need to take it seriously by reading it intead of deleting it. We need a moderator because we can do better than futzing around with spam.
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One of my favorite “all-student” wars occurred my first-year; a student sent an e-mail to everyone stating she lost her Hebrew Bible, which has a lot of sentimental value, in Proctor. In response, another student wrote to everyone that she lost . . . well, I forget now, but I think it she lost her gloves. This quickly devolved into about 25-30, perhaps more, e-mails about things students have lost. And then Ann Hanson had to get involved. It was one those situations that was annoying and yet strangely amusing.
The system you are describing sounds a great deal like the system my high school used. It works like a sort of intranet, with a folder for your personal mailbox, and then various different folders which can also serve as discussion boards within the system. Students are expected to read swis at least twice a day. Most check between every class. I believe there are a few other schools who use this system (Wellesley?). There is a folder for student announcements which is not allowed to be used for discussion and within which there are specific folders for lost and found announcements, things to buy and sell, to borrow, birthday shout outs, etc and one for discussions (which tends to devolve into sometimes hilarious political bickering, and virtual food fights), and often classes will have folders of their own to communicate with. There is also a built in instant messaging system, which can be turned on or off. It is a good system, well organized and efficient, and one of the things that is universally missed by students who have graduated or moved on. Compared to swis/FirstClass (school wide information system) Microsoft Outlook “Express” seems clunky and frustrating. There’s my accidental advertisement. I have been, shall we say, unamused, by the reply-all spamming in my mailbox, though it is not as troublesome yet as it might be once I begin in February and actually need to find other emails amidst the clutter.
Perhaps we need a dynamic new website that incorporates various targeted RSS feeds to address particular populations and interests? Somebody should get working on that…
I attended the Gettysburg College Portal Conference 2007 where they showed off their web portal which included a module where people would submit items for a daily email newsletter, which were then moderated and sent out at the end of each day. This was their *only* “all campus” email message. I’ve suggested this a couple times here, but so far no bites.
If we wanted to set something like that up, we have several existing systems we could use to handle it, like the Newsletter module I wrote for our CMS that we use to send out MiddNews (http://go.middlebury.edu/middnews), which is federated through our opt-in/opt-out list service (http://go.middlebury.edu/lists). Or even just a blog on our WordPress server with categories for students, faculty, staff, and other groups that you could subscribe to through RSS, which could even then be aggregated into sections in the new News Portal (http://go.middlebury.edu/news).
Even though email isn’t strictly in the domain of the web, internal/external communications are at the heart of the web makeover project we’re in the process of, so if this is something people really feel passionately about, vote it up on the Ten Votes page Ryan set up!
I don’t mind all-student e-mails. Seriously, it doesn’t take that long to glance and delete if you’re uninterested. And that random note from the Ceramics Club, Cafecito Hour, or the Faculty Lecture Series may pique your interested and lead to an interesting experience (or even a coffee mug).
It’s possible to reduce redundancy and duplicates without sacrificing diversity.
Acting Dean of the College Gus Jordan sent out an all-student email stating: “Please be aware that misuse of College email services, including unauthorized ‘all student’ emails, is not only annoying, but also a violation of College Handbook policy, and subject to disciplinary action. Please do not initiate ‘all student’ emails, and do not use the ‘reply all’ option to emails with a long list of student names.”
…turns out that the Department of State is having a similar problem with reply-all:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/STATE_DEPARTMENT_E_MAIL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT