By Emily GlazerThe Daily Northwestern
Northwestern e-mail addresses will be gaining a letter and almost two gigabytes of space by June.
E-mail addresses will morph from “@northwestern.edu” to “@u.northwestern.edu” when NU abandons WebMail to offer e-mail in a format similar to Gmail and powered by Google, NU Information Technology announced Tuesday.
The new accounts, which Google provides for free through its Google Apps for Education program, will include a calendar and instant messaging service along with Google Docs, an online program that lets users share and edit documents and spreadsheets.
Students still will receive mail from their “@northwestern.edu” accounts, said Wendy Woodward, NU’s director of Technology Support Services.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to expand services for students in a way that is cost effective,” she said.
Though the service is free, the human resources needed for the transition will have a cost, Woodward said. She would not say how much implementing Google Apps would cost the university.
NU is one of the first universities to enter into an e-mail partnership with Google, which already provides e-mail services for students at Arizona State University and San Jose City College. The change originally was a request from Associated Student Government and the Graduate Student Association.
“(ASG) pushed the fact that we needed a new e-mail system and that the current WebMail system is inadequate,” said Kevin Palms, a Weinberg senior and ASG’s technology director. “I’m happy that it’s finally happening and we’re finally getting it.”
ASG president Jay Schumacher, a Communication senior, said he was excited about the change.
“Since freshman year, I’ve been frustrated with WebMail,” he said, saying that he thought WebMail has not changed since that year.
Though the university announced a possible change in October, Schumacher said he thought they had moved quickly.
“You’re talking about a huge overhaul, and that the university can move forward quickly shows they’re committed,” he said.
Weinberg sophomore Shweta Aggarwal said she thought the change will be more convenient.
“Just this morning I got a warning to clear out my inbox (because of limited WebMail space),” she said.
There is currently no plan to assign faculty and staff to the new service. This change will affect undergraduates and students in the Graduate School. The other graduate and professional schools will be included in the future, Woodward said.
Next year’s freshmen will be placed into the Google service automatically, Woodward said. In the past, graduating seniors have lost their NU accounts shortly after graduation, but the Google service has no such time limit.
NUIT settled on Google because a majority of students who have an e-mail account outside of WebMail already forward their mail to a Gmail account, Woodward said.
Weinberg sophomore Kelechi Emuchay said he supports the change.
“I transferred to Gmail a while ago,” he said. “WebMail, in my opinion, is so ancient and Gmail has all of these features that make life easier.”
Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].
