Scripps College is the only 5C that does not allow its students to maintain access to their official school email addresses after graduation. You can copy & paste the following letter to send on your own (and add you own thoughts!) and/or sign virtually here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScJpMKTuPrZAGwSBPGP43sbGkEeE8aUzXz6ez3RAG4n4p1Z3w/viewform
Dear President Tiedens, the Office of Alumnae Engagement, and Dean of Students:
While we are in school, our official school emails play an important part in connecting us to our peers, professors, the Scripps and Claremont Consortium alumni networks, and others outside the Claremont community by providing us with a professional means to communicate. When our emails are disconnected and deleted after we graduate, we lose those connections and lines of communication that we have spent four years cultivating. Scripps is the only Claremont College that does not allow its graduates to maintain access to their school email accounts.
Not having access to these email accounts is a direct hindrance to life after graduation. It makes maintaining connections with our professors and other professional individuals/organizations more difficult as we do not have a consistent line of communication. Sending emails from multiple addresses can cause confusion, which makes alumnae seem less professional. It also hinders communication between alumnae. As Scripps heavily emphasizes the benefits of an alumnae network and asks alumnae to donate their time and money post-graduation, Scripps should alleviate barriers to nurturing those connections. Alumnae emails would provide Scripps with an ongoing line of contact to potential alumnae donors, who may change personal and business emails many times over the course of their lives and careers. Scripps may otherwise lose touch with these individuals. Additionally, a Scripps email address provides the recipient with assurance that the sender is, in fact, a Scripps alumna. It is less credible to use our personal emails and risks our emails getting lost in inboxes when contacting job prospects, fellow alumnae, prospective Scripps students, and the institution itself.
University email accounts increase the visibility of Scripps as an institution as well as help alumnae identify each other. The current alumnae network is difficult to access, navigate, and requires personal email addresses. If alumnae were allowed to keep their Scripps email addresses and access a directory of fellow alumnae’s email addresses, it would facilitate more connections between alumnae as well as provide a means for current students to reach out to alumnae for mentorship and insight.
If misuse is a concern, many universities transition graduates to alumni accounts to avoid confusion. Many do so within the Outlook system like the one used at Scripps. To save potential cost of providing people with emails who do not want them, alumnae emails could be an opt-in system for new graduates and offered with a sign-up process to past graduates.
Thank you for taking these concerns seriously. Current students and alumnae hope to be able to work with the Office of Information Technology to start putting these proposed changes into effect, ensuring an accessible and professional means of connection for Scripps students, alumnae, and professors.
In support of maintaining Scripps emails,
Kaela Fong ’19
Kaela is a recent alum and has written this petition in collaboration with her fellow alums because she has seen how beneficial an official school email address has been for her peers at the other 5Cs while also knowing the loss of professional connections she and many others will face upon deletion of Scripps emails after graduation.
