By Sasha Williams
The Student Government Association senate passed a resolution stating that students can keep their Netmail accounts after graduating. Currently, student accounts can only be accessed until the user of the account graduates.
A senator proposed having Netmail addresses forwarded to another account indefinitely so that students could still be easily contacted about university news.
Frank Mianzo, director of Student Affairs Technology, who also attended the meeting, suggested that a more reasonable approach would be to allow students to retain their student accounts for a limited amount of time.
Other suggestions included creating alumni e-mail accounts or allowing students to purchase student accounts after graduation.
Frank Wu, Business School council president, said that ideally his university e-mail account would never expire.
Wu believes keeping his university e-mail address will help him stay involved after he graduates by updating him about events and by allowing students, faculty and staff to stay in touch.
An e-mail system specifically for alumni would work too, Wu said, adding that he wouldn’t mind paying for such a service if it were offered.
“It would be one possible way to offset the costs,” he said. “Somebody’s got to pay for it.”
Senators also debated whether the proposal should be passed through the senate first or if they should gather more details. Some senators felt they needed more research about the feasability of plan first.
The final proposal was amended to allow students to retain their student e-mail accounts for two years after graduation and during that time to have the ability to forward that mail to an e-mail address of their choice.
While some senators voted against the proposal, it passed by an oral vote. The proposal passed, but the changes will only occur if the university agrees to the plan or comes to a different compromise with the SGA.
