Students received an e-mail Wednesday informing them of a new tool for campus information, the UA Student Newsletter. The newsletter, which will first go out Jan. 29, is designed to decrease the ever-prevalent spam issues students are encountering and organize information from the University to its students.
"One of the things we realized is University students get a lot of e-mails from the institution, all of it very important information, but the volume made it hard sometimes to know what to pay attention to first," said UA spokeswoman Deborah Lane.
UA officials and the SGA have worked together to produce the newsletter, which has been in the works since October of last year.
"We, working with student government, developed UA Student News, and it will allow us to organize the information in a way that will make it easy for students to see what's important and read the information they're most interested in," Lane said.
SGA president R.B. Walker said he thinks the newsletter has multiple benefits.
"I think we're killing two birds with one stone. We're getting rid of the terrible spam that students are annoyed with and we're enhancing students' ability to find opportunities on campus. It's a bold statement about my administration's commitment to technology and how it can make student life easier on our campus and beyond," Walker said.
Spam, or unwanted e-mails, has long plagued inboxes across the campus, said Walter Blanchard, a junior majoring in criminal justice.
"It'll be a lot better than the way it is now. The way it is now you get 20 e-mails a week, most of which you don't want to read," Blanchard said.
Other students expressed disdain for their cluttered inboxes.
"I was sick and tired of the old way; I don't like having to clear out my e-mail every day," said Chase Alley, a senior majoring in Spanish.
Brittnie Mabry, UA Student Newsletter editor and a sophomore majoring in public relations and political science, said she understands the problems students are coming across.
"Students get spam every week; half the students don't even open them," Mabry said. "This will be a way of getting that important information to the students without annoying them."
The newsletter, which will be in students' inboxes every Wednesday, will be sent to any person enrolled at the University.
Due to the large volume of e-mails being sent out to accomplish this, the University is sending them during normally slow hours on Tuesday nights.
"Sending it to that large a number of students means they need to be sent on off-peak hours to not clog the system, so most students can expect it in their inbox by Wednesday morning," Mabry said.
UA Student Newsletter is being modeled after the newsletter all faculty get during the week called Dialog Extra. Likewise, faculty and staff will use the same form they use for Dialog Extra to submit information to the newsletter. Student groups can use the University's and the SGA's Web site to submit their pieces for publication.
Other than the decrease in spam, students said they think it will help them find more out about different groups.
"I think it will be good because you'll get to read more about other activities than what you signed up for," said Tim Simmons, a freshman majoring in telecommunication and film.
Both the University and SGA officials said they think the program will be a success.
"I think it's really going to be something students like, and it will be in a format that will appeal to students," Lane said.
"I hope it becomes a clearinghouse for information that students can use every week," Walker said.
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