Canisius students are usually one of two types: those who never check the emails they get and have an inbox that numbers in the thousands or those who click through their emails religiously. Either way, students receive an abundance of emails every day. However, next semester, you can expect those email numbers to go down thanks to a new project the Senate is working on.
The project is spearheaded by Senators Sean Wagner and Joe Lesh, the USA ITS liaisons. The idea itself has was brought up early in the semester, and Wagner and Lesh have been running with this idea over the past month and a half. That eventually turned into the Email Reduction Act, which Senate passed on Tuesday, March 22.
The hope is this action will reduce the likes of emails that give minimal information yet clog up inboxes daily. The actin it’s current form will regulate club leaders as they will have two emails that they can send out to all undergraduates every semester. Usually, those emails are an introduction for the benefit of freshmen and for one big event.
There are provisions in this act that allow for more club emails if needed. Any requests more will have to be granted by the Vice President of Student Organizations and Student Life. Like SPB, Larger clubs might already have a larger amount of emails because they send out relevant information to the whole student population.
Wagner and Lesh say this makes it easier and more digestible for students to get club information while not restricting for clubs. “Sometimes, you want to send something to all students, but you don’t want it in a 500-word email with a picture,” Wagner said. “You can often condense that down to 100 words or so.”
The new method of sending emails is called “blurbs.” Clubs can submit a blurb to a portal reviewed and approved by Student Life, similar to how the Stall Street Journal works. Clubs can, in turn, submit as many blurbs as they want. Each morning, one email will go out containing every clubs’ blurbs, rather than students getting 6-7 emails during the day. These emails will contain shorter, more concise information and increase the likelihood that students will actually read the email. This is the system that Under the Dome uses for sending info to professors, so by copying that system, the program doesn’t have to develop any brand new coding or software, so it can be implemented quicker.
This act will only affect emails sent out by clubs and do not have the authority to limit the number of emails that Campus Ministry, faculty, or the Griff Center can send out, nor does it regulate the number of emails that club members can send to each other.
Lesh says that this is a good thing for club leaders because they can send out more blurbs on this daily email than possible with regular email. “Every morning when you wake up, you’ll have an email in your inbox with all the pertinent info in an organized fashion,” Lesh said. “This allows the user to see what’s pertinent to them and allows clubs to send out more.”
There’s a caveat in the act that says that clubs are limited to five emails per semester, a very modest amount until implementation. Lesh and Wagner think it won’t be an issue since four weeks left in the semester.
