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The Spectator
SA Update
College Readies for Gmail Switch
by Eve Denton '12Student Assembly Correspondent
October 30, 2009
At the Oct. 26 Student Assembly meeting, Vice President for Information Technology Dave Smallen spoke about Hamilton's upcoming switch to Google as the e-mail server. ITS hopes to have more details available by the end of November regarding when exactly this transition will happen. They are currently working on ensuring that the switchover will be completely automated and require no work for e-mail account holders. The switching will most likely take place over the course of a week, with groups of students being moved each day. E-mail access should be down for no more than one hour, although old e-mails that must move to the new account may take up to 24 hours to be processed. Switches will probably occur around 9 a.m. while students are on campus so that anyone with technical issues will easily be able to contact ITS and fix the problem. The switch to Google will make smart phone access to Hamilton e-mail much easier and save the school thousands of dollars every year since the current server charges, while Google is free.
Student Assembly also discussed a resolution that was passed by the body this past February calling for the course evaluation deadline to be moved from the last day of classes to the last day of finals. The resolution states that students often have more time available during finals week than they do before, and moving the deadline would allow for a larger and more detailed response. The faculty committee that examined the resolution does not support moving the deadline by one week. However, Student Assembly hopes to continue the dialogue regarding this date. A Student Assembly representative also suggested that making evaluations open to the student-body-at-large to allow for more educated class-choosing decisions would be helpful, but this seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Next week the Student Interests Committee will have large thank-you cards in Beinecke for students to sign thanking various groups in the community such as the Kirkland Firemen, for their support on campus. Hamilton students are encouraged to drop by and sign a card.