UW-Madison students will lose access to their wisc.edu email accounts nine months after graduation, according to the UW Division of Information Technology, the last step in a yearslong process of eliminating email accounts connecting alumni with the university.
The move follows UW-Madison’s plan, announced a year ago, to deactivate wisc.edu accounts held by alumni. A year before, the Wisconsin Alumni Association also stopped assigning uwalumni.com email accounts, previously given to alumni upon graduation. Alumni who already have been given uwalumni.com email addresses will be able to keep them, but no new accounts will be issued.
“Many factors contributed to the decision to end email access for alumni and former students, including major cybersecurity risks posed by these accounts, significant changes to costs for storage and licensing, and requests from former students who no longer wanted to maintain these accounts,” said Mary Evansen, communications director for UW-Madison Division of Information Technology, in a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal.
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Graduates and former students of the university will have nine months of access to their wisc.edu emails before the accounts are deactivated. All accounts for alumni who graduated more than nine months ago have been deactivated already.
According to the university’s Division of Information Technology, 99% of compromised email accounts belong to former students. Compromised accounts can lead to cybersecurity risks such as unauthorized use of university research and data.
The accounts also pose a great financial strain on the university, Evansen said. Vendors such as Microsoft have changed their policy for higher education accounts, making the once free and unlimited storage expensive for universities.
“Related to email, we will now need to pay for storage for every single email account,” she said.
The Division of Information Technology was unable to provide an estimate of how much maintaining alumni accounts would cost, but Evansen said it would “increase indefinitely” as the alumni population increases by 10,000 people each year.
Evansen said the division’s main priority during the transition is “to help support people through change and minimize disruption.” She said the university started by deactivating inactive email accounts, ensuring the school had the ability to walk alumni through the changes before deactivating their accounts.
Email addresses through the school, she said, are meant “to be used for UW–Madison activities.” Students have been encouraged to set up personal email accounts for other purposes, including internships and networking.
Wisconsin Alumni Association Executive Director Sarah Schutt said the change will have an impact on graduating students, as they will no longer have an address associated with the university.
“This is the first time in almost my entire tenure that we won’t have a known, branded email for graduating students,” Schutt said.
The loss of uwalumni.com emails, Schutt said, was less drastic, as students rarely knew about the accounts prior to receiving emails about them. Because they no longer send emails reminding students to sign up for an account, she said it is hardly a loss.
Schutt recommends students update their email addresses in the UW Alumni website to ensure they can receive future communication from the university after graduation.
Students should be proactive, Evansen said, when it comes to using different email accounts.
“The Division of Information Technology recommends that current students, faculty and staff maintain a separate personal email account for personal use,” she said.
Editor's note: This article has been edited to correct that, while the Wisconsin Alumni Association has stopped assigning uwalumni.com email accounts, alumni who already have one will be able to keep it.