Email Policies
Electronic mail as official Middlebury communication
Email is considered an official method for communicating with Middlebury students, faculty, and staff. Official email communications are intended to meet and serve academic and administrative needs. Middlebury expects that such communications, many of which are time-critical, will be received and read in a timely fashion. To enable this process, All students, faculty, and staff are issued a standardized Middlebury email account to receive these communications. Opting-out from official email lists is not permitted. Students, faculty, and staff who choose to forward email from their Middlebury email accounts are responsible for ensuring that all information, including attachments, is transmitted in its entirety to the preferred account. Individual or institutional email accounts may not be used for direct advertising for personal profit or gain.
Guidelines for Appropriate Use of All Campus Electronic Mail Messages
1. Email messages may only be sent to all (or substantially all) faculty, staff, and students groups with appropriate permission from the office of Dean of the Faculty, Human Resources, and/or Dean of Students, respectively. Messages that do not follow these guidelines may be blocked or removed by ITS in accordance with Middlebury’s handbook policy for responsible use, or in the event that the operational continuity of our email services is determined to be at risk.
2. The following guidelines reflect common courtesy to help everyone’s use of email be most efficient:
2a. Messages must relate directly to Middlebury business. Announcements of non-Middlebury events should be handled through other channels (such as local newspapers). Direct solicitation for fundraising via all-campus email is prohibited. Advertisements for personal items may be accomplished through the staff and student newsletters or newspapers.
2b. Email messages should be avoided for Middlebury events already listed online or in publications, unless there is significant supplemental information or last-minute changes in location or time.
Email Retention Policy
Information Technology Services (ITS) creates electronic mail backups daily, solely for the purpose of restoring the entire electronic mail system in the event of a disaster. Backups are retained for a period of 60 days, and then the content is destroyed.
Backups are not available in order to retrieve deleted messages nor do they serve as a record for the purpose of retention. If you wish to retain a copy of a message, you should file the message in a folder under your electronic mailbox.
Each department should make provisions for retaining messages in accordance with e-discovery requirements and departmental needs and craft appropriate departmental policies.