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Alumni Email Program

Changes in the Email for Life Program: Information for Alumni

Email has evolved significantly since Kent State first introduced these services over 20 years ago. To ensure secure, efficient operations and to keep pace with technological advancements, we have periodically updated the scope of our services.

After much internal deliberation and evaluation of industry best practices, the university has decided that @kent.edu email accounts will be available exclusively to enrolled students. It has become clear that maintaining the necessary security and storage for alumni accounts would be cost, security and resource prohibitive. As a result, email service and related storage for alumni who graduated over two years ago will be discontinued on _______.

Alumni will retain access to their account and related data for two years after graduation.
 

What this means for you

If you graduated more than two years ago, your @kent.edu account will expire on ________.  You will not be able to log in nor receive or forward emails.  All Google (Gmail/Drive/Photos) and Microsoft (Outlook email/OneDrive) based content will be deleted and unrecoverable at that time.

Alumni who graduated within the last two years will retain access to their account. This access ends at the two year mark after graduation.

 

What You Should Do

To ensure you continue to receive your emails, please take the following actions:

  1. Update your contacts: Notify your personal and professional contacts to begin using your personal email address before the end of the year. Update any financial, social, gaming or shopping accounts that are linked to an @kent.edu address.
  2. Check communications coming from Kent State: If you receive important updates or alumni communications in your @kent.edu account, you can contact those senders and share the personal address they should use in the future.
  3. Disconnect email clients and/or digital services: If Apple Mail, Outlook or other providers have your primary account address as @kent.edu, you will need to replace that with a personal email.

Note: We strongly suggest beginning these steps well before _____ , as email accounts will begin deletion on that day. To avoid disruption in any of your communications, please act early.

If you are a current or emeriti Kent State faculty or staff member, please see the Digital Storage Changes project page for information about how changes will affect you as an employee.   

My Kent State account is my only email account. What should I do?

Many providers offer free email services. Below are links that can instruct you on setting up an account with any of the top 10 providers. This list is for information purposes only; Kent State University does not recommend or endorse any specific email service.

What should I do to ensure I don't miss any important emails?

We recommend taking these steps:

  • Backup: Save important emails – forward to your new address or save elsewhere
  • Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new email
  • Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list (link is external). Google also explains how to download your contacts. (get link)
  • Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions
  • Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Kent State email
  • Update Profiles: If you use your Kent State address for social media and online profiles, update them
  • Check Payments: Update email for subscriptions that use your Kent State address. 
How do I inform regular senders that this account is closing?

Review the addresses of senders in the emails received at your @kent.edu address. If there are relationships you want to maintain after this account is closed, send a message containing a personal email address for them to use in the future.

I have all of my accounts and services tied to my @kent.edu address!  Can I keep it? 

No, our contract and licensing will not enable alumni to keep @kent.edu accounts. Please use the next several months - _____ to _______-  to alert senders that this account is closing and retrieve any important contacts' information. 

I am an emeritus faculty member. How am I affected?

Like most faculty and staff, former faculty with emeritus status will have storage limits of ___GB for Outlook, ___GB for email archives, and ___GB for OneDrive beginning in ______. If an emeritus faculty member is forwarding an email account to an outside service, that forwarding will end on ______.

??? Not all retired faculty have emeritus status -- to be considered emeritus, you must have requested and been approved for emeritus status before leaving the university. This special status is available to full-time tenure-track, teaching, or associated faculty who retired or resigned at the age of sixty or older with ten or more years of service or at any age with twenty-five or more years of service. ???

Is the second paragraph an accurate representation of how KSU determines emeritus status as well?

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