This Just In
I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. All Columbia students received the following email tonight. We are certainly a progressive educational institution. There is no doubt about that.
Dear Student,
For some time, Columbia has been considering how to best
communicate with our students. It now seems clear to us that the
principal way in which members of the University communicate with
one another is through e-mail, and we feel that the time has come
for Columbia to make e-mail an official vehicle of communication.
This will, we hope, improve both the timeliness and reliability of
our efforts to inform students of matters of importance to them.
It will also expand the range of services we will be able to offer
in the future and permit many more University transactions to be
conducted through e-mail and the Internet.You will find below the new ‘Columbia University Student E-mail
Communication Policy,’ which outlines the University’s plans for
using e-mail and the responsibilities we expect students to assume
in response to this change.The effective date of this policy is July 1, 2004. If you have any
questions about it, please write to studentservices.columbia.edu. [emphasis mine. -j]Thank you.
Alan Brinkley
Provost
Robert Kasdin
Senior Executive Vice President
First thought: what the hell was the previous “official vehicle of communication”?
Second thought: This “email” is surely a new technology, and we’re not even sure how to write email addresses correctly. Give us time. I think we are next evaluating the so-called “World Wide Web” for use in academics. Welcome to the future.