WMU > OIT"

Revised: 06/2008

WMU E-mail Address Use and Rules

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to establish rules for the use of the Western Michigan University e-mail address.

Scope

This policy has been developed to encourage the use of official WMU e-mail addresses for conducting all official business of the University. The use of personal, non-wmich.edu addresses to conduct official business is strongly discouraged, and, in violation of this policy.

Policy Statement(s)

• E-mail addresses are assigned at the time of Bronco NetID creation.
  • Student e-mail addresses are in the format of firstname.middle_initial.lastname@wmich.edu.
  • Faculty and staff e-mail addresses are in the format of firstname.lastname@wmich.edu.
• Only e-mail sent to the University e-mail address of record will be supported.
• E-mail may not be automatically forwarded to off-campus computer accounts from your University assigned e-mail account.
• E-mail sent in the format of username@wmich.edu will no longer be supported.

All e-mail sent from an administrative or academic office is considered to be an official notice and must contain a valid "to", "from", and "reply-to", and identify the person or process that initiated the message. Since some official communications may be time-sensitive, students, faculty and staff are responsible for reading their e-mail on a frequent and regular basis.

Definitions

WMU e-mail address is the official e-mail address assigned at the time one's Bronco NetID is created.

Bronco NetID is a unique account that is automatically assigned when a student is admitted, or a faculty or staff member is hired. It remains active as long as enrollment, employment, or official University affiliation continues.

Justification

Western Michigan University uses e-mail to communicate official University information of all kinds to students, faculty, and staff.

If non-wmich.ed e-mail addresses are used, and e-mail is sent to ISP addresses, such as AOL, gmail, or hotmail, etc., and the person receiving the message from wmich.edu marks the message as spam, then a percentage of e-mail sent to others with that ISP's address, from WMU is also blocked for a period of days. The percentage increase as the number of persons marking the message as spam increases. This means that large numbers of WMU students or prospective students, would not receive official communications from WMU. It is therefore critical that all official e-mail to WMU students, prospective students, faculty, or staff be sent to the official wmich.edu e-mail address and from an official wmich.edu address.

Enforcement

Individuals who conduct official business for Western Michigan University shall abide by the rules of this policy. Any person found to be in violation of this policy, will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action as defined by current University policy.

Reference

• E-mail Rules
• WMU Mass E-mail Standards
• WMU Rules For Use of Computing Resources