E-mail is an official means of communication at UMM

The University Of Minnesota, Morris adopted the following policy in Fall 2001:

University assigned student e-mail accounts shall be an official means of communication of the University with all students. Students are responsible for all information sent to them via the University assigned e-mail account. Students who choose to forward the University e-mail account are still responsible for all the information (including attachments) that was sent to the University e-mail account.

Questions regarding this policy statement can be sent to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Dean.

History and Information

The University of Minnesota, Morris, provides students with an e-mail account upon matriculating to the institution. This account is free of charge and currently is active as long as the student remains actively enrolled. Increasingly, e-mail is becoming the primary mode of communication between students and the university. This information varies from college updates to registration summaries, and vital financial aid acceptance forms.

Some students do not use their UMM e-mail account. Other students forward their UMM e-mail account to a second e-mail account (e. g., America on Line, Yahoo, Hotmail, EarthLink, etc.). When students do not use or forward their UMM e-mail accounts vital information is 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 UMM e-mail account while they are students. To better serve our students, it is proposed that upon matriculation students are informed that their UMM 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.

Tips and advice for students

There are several easy ways to use UMM e-mail. The simplest and most universally available method is to use University of Minnesota Webmail at http://www.morris.umn.edu/webmail/ The only requirements to use Webmail are an Internet-connected computer and a Web browser.

Other students prefer to directly log in to the UMM e-mail server and use pine for e-mail. If you own your own computer and are connected to ResNet, or dial in to the UMM modem pool, you might choose to take advantage of the added functionality of Thunderbird for e-mail or one of the other popular mail software applications. If you don't own your own computer, UMM's six Computing Services labs are available for all UMM students. Three of the labs are open 24 hours a day.

If you forward your UMM e-mail to another e-mail account, we strongly recommend that you thoroughly test forwarding. Make sure that you send a test message to your UMM e-mail account and that you correctly receive it at your forwarded account. Test with a document attachment as well, and make sure the document is not garbled in forwarding. UMM users have experienced problems with mail forwarding to hotmail.com and other mail service providers. As the policy states, "students who choose to forward the University e-mail account are still responsible for all the information (including attachments) that was sent to the University e-mail account." Come to the Computing Services help desk in Behmler 10 if you need help testing forwarding.