Some students planning on graduating this spring were surprised last week to learn that they were not included on the official Mills senior e-mail list. The problem was quickly remedied.
Throughout the term, Senior Class Treasurer Pamela Caserta has been communicating with this year’s graduating class by mass e-mail – or so she thought. After sending several e-mails asking seniors to respond and contribute to issues surrounding the planning of the Senior Pin Dinner, Caserta realized that she herself was not receiving e-mail from the list.
Caserta contacted Director of Central Systems and Administrative Computing Marshall Northcott to inquire as to why she was not receiving e-mail from the senior class mailing list. Northcott advised her to check her official class standing through MyMills, and Caserta learned that despite the fact that she is graduating this year, she is still a junior – by just a quarter of a credit.
After discovering that she may not be included on the senior mailing list because of her “official” class standing, Caserta contacted the M Center and said, “It has been brought to my attention that the lists of e-mail addresses as well as mailing addresses of seniors are not up to date.” She said that the inconsistency was a problem because “many people are not getting important information.”
Alice Knudsen, associate director of the M Center, responded to Caserta’s concerns promptly and remedied the problem.
“Before I even said we need to make an alias for all people who are graduating (and not just those with senior standing), they started making the list. We had it by the next day,” Caserta said.
Knudsen said that the M Center “constructed an e-mail alias that was based on graduation term, and not on credit level.”
She also said that the issue arose out of an inconsistency in the use of the word ‘senior,’ which some interpret as meaning someone who will graduate this year and the M Center defines as someone with 25.5 or more credits. Those graduating this year who currently have 25.25 credits or less were not originally included in the senior class e-mail list.
Knudsen also told The Weekly that if any other students had concerns, they “have a very creative” Information Technology department that will “do whatever it takes to make sure the communication gets out to the appropriate students.”
