Broadcast Email to Students Policy

Sponsor:

 Information Technology Services

Contact:

 Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Information Technology Services

Category:

 Information Security and Technology

Number:

 1000.001

Effective Date:

 2006/10/17

Implementation History:

Keywords:

 Email, students, broadcast, FERPA

Background Information:

Purpose

Empire State College increasingly transacts most of its business online. Email communications are a critical aspect of our business operations. Email is an essential tool for communicating with students about enrollment, registration, financial aid, books and learning resources and their ongoing academic work.

Students’ email addresses are private and protected under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). They are not to be revealed to outside groups, may not be used for commercial purposes and may be used by Empire State College employees only within the scope of their college work assignments.

Email is also a way to promote community building within a widely distributed organization, particularly to inform our constituency about student and alumni activities. Informational emails, however, must be managed within the business and legal context described previously.

 

Definitions

Statements

Broadcast emails to students, whether generic or personalized by name, are restricted to the following kinds of communications:

  • formal communications relating to college business or academic matters
  • notification of significant events or changes in governance, policy and practice
  • alerts concerning matters of safety and health.

The president, the appropriate vice president or Coordinating Center director, or the center dean may approve broadcast emails to students.

Anyone choosing to communicate via broadcast email must place the student addresses in the bcc field to protect the identity of students, as required by FERPA.

Applicable Legislation and Regulations

Related References, Policies, Procedures, Forms and Appendices

Broadcast Email to Communicate about Student Alumni Activities

To help build community and to enable college constituents to connect with others of similar interests, Empire State College will maintain an Events Calendar on its website that lists activities of interest to the broad college community.

The Office of Alumni and Student Relations and the Office of Communications and Government Relations will maintain the Events Calendar. It will be constantly updated, and events will be deleted automatically once they have occurred. The Events Calendar will be housed in the student services and information section of MyESC. It will include items such as graduations, all college meetings, regional events and activities of interest to segments of the college community.

Each calendar entry will consist of a title, a brief description and the name of the individual or group initiating the listing, including contact information. Anyone in the college community may propose items for listing. Criteria for inclusion include the following:

  • listings must be college-sponsored events or of interest to some identifiable segment of the college community (i.e., they may not represent the interests of merely one or two individuals)
  • listings should be relevant to the educational purposes, both curricular and co-curricular, of the college
  • no commercial postings, including individual commerce, are allowed
  • listings may include activities about which there may be disagreement or controversy, but must not be inflammatory or pose a danger to anyone in the college community.

Students will receive event notification emails regionally as well as information about broad based college wide events.

Students who do not wish to receive the emails and event notifications may ask to be omitted from future mailings.