Student E-mail Policy

  1. Purpose

    To provide guidelines for student e-mail accounts at The University of Southern Mississippi.

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  2. Policy Recommendation

    It is recommended that an activation policy of the "@usm.edu" e-mail address be implemented for all student accounts at the time of enrollment. The "@usm.edu" e-mail address will remain active for a minimum of one year after a student leaves the university.

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  3. Guidelines

    The dissemination of mass e-mail to students at The University of Southern Mississippi will be restricted to university business*. Authority to approve the distribution of e-mail in this manner rests with university administration, including deans, department chairs, and directors.

    Faculty will determine how e-mail will be used in their classes, and will specify their requirements in the course syllabus. This policy will ensure that all students will be able to comply with e-mail based course requirements specified by faculty. Therefore, faculty can make the assumption that students' official "@usm.edu" accounts are being accessed and faculty can use e-mail for their classes accordingly.

    The "@usm.edu" e-mail address will be maintained in PeopleSoft as the Campus e-mail address type.

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  4. Privacy

    Extreme caution should be taken in using e-mail to communicate confidential or sensitive information. Users should not assume that e-mail is private and confidential.

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  5. Expectations

    Students are expected to check their e-mail on a frequent and consistent basis in order to stay current with University communications. Students have the responsibility to recognize that certain communications may be time-critical. A student's failure to receive and read University communications in a timely manner does not absolve that student from knowing and complying with the content of such communications.

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  6. Forwarding of E-mail

    The University will not maintain students' personal e-mail addresses. Students may elect to "forward" (auto-forward) e-mail sent to their University e-mail address to another e-mail address (e.g., @aol.com; @hotmail.com). However, students who forward e-mail from their official University e-mail address to another address do so at their own risk. If e-mail is lost because of forwarding, it does not absolve the student from the responsibilities associated with communications sent to his or her official University e-mail address.

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  7. Review

    The University is responsible for the review of this policy as needed. Policy changes will be authorized by approval through the University's IT Governance process.

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  8. Definitions

    1. University business: USM-Mailout, Emergency Alerts, Class information, Communication from teaching staff, business directly tied to the University of Southern Mississippi.

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  9. Revision History

    1. 06/12/17: Outline structure modified slightly to accommodate HTML format.
    2. 06/12/07: Posted to website.
    3. 06/13/07: Changed formating.
    4. 04/23/08: Modified policies menu.

Information about the student e-mail policy should be provided to students at Preview, and through the following University publications:

The Student Printz
The Student Handbook
The Class Schedule Guide
The Undergraduate Bulletin
The Graduate Bulletin
www.usm.edu