Students To Test New Webmail

All Harvard undergraduates will receive new e-mail addresses “early next semester” as the College attempts to phase out its @fas.harvard.edu endings and current webmail interface, according to an e-mail obtained by The Crimson.

The changes come as a response to what Client Technology Adviser Noah S. Selsby ’94, the author of the e-mail, called the College’s “outcry for a new e-mail system.”

The message, sent to several students in campus leadership positions, states that the new system will be armed with “more logical usernames” ending in @college.harvard.edu, a “faster, cleaner webmail interface,” and “10gb quotas.”

But some students will be able to use the new e-mail addresses and interface much sooner than this spring.

Within the next few weeks, the e-mail specifies, up to 1,600 students—or about a quarter of the College’s undergraduates—will be tapped to take part in a pilot program that will last for a “few months,” until the entire student body is assigned new addresses.

For the duration of the pilot, students’ old @fas.harvard.edu addresses will remain active, but will forward to their new @college.harvard.edu addresses.

“We’re certainly pleased that it’s happening,” UC President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09 said of the change, noting that former UC member Brian S. Gillis ’07-’08 as one of the program’s earliest advocates.

At a Committee on College Life meeting last year, Gillis said that current e-mail addresses are confusing to those outside Harvard, especially employers unfamiliar with the “FAS” acronym.

And Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd called the current restrictions on usernames—which often add numbers to the end of addresses with common names—“dehumanizing.”

Sundquist said that the trial program will allow FAS IT—which he characterized as highly receptive to undergraduate input—to deal with several qualms that have arisen over the now imminent change.

William R. Rose ’11, another UC member approached to take part in the program, said he was initially concerned about the trial program’s lack of a forwarding feature, which he said may prevent students from sifting through hordes of e-mail with mail services like Gmail, which is popular among College students.

Sundquist said the FAS IT department took this concern into account and that the new mail client will allow e-mail forwarding.

Rumors have abounded that student class years may also be added to the new addresses, meaning that a current freshman would have an e-mail address that looked something like firstname.lastname.12@college.harvard.edu. Several students at Sunday’s UC meeting expressed concern over such a change, saying that students who graduate off schedule—either with advanced standing or after taking time off—may end up with e-mail addresses that do not reflect their class years.

Several council members also expressed reservations as to why the College hadn’t simply adopted a Gmail-powered system given the popularity of the Google webmail program among the undergraduates.

“[FAS IT] is going to have trouble getting 1,600 people opt-in to the program,” Rose said, adding that he would “doubt that they’re anywhere near that number yet.”

But Sundquist said that he’s looking forward to using a “new and exciting” e-mail address which he said will probably earn him “major cool points.”

He said he expects that the @college.harvard.edu e-mail addresses will be ready for use by students in the pilot program within the next few days.

FAS IT declined to comment on any aspects of the e-mail changes until a formal announcenemt is made in the next few days.

—Staff writer Alex M. McLeese contributed to the writing of this story.

—Staff writer Charles J. Wells can be reached at wells2@fas.harvard.edu.