With the MySacState website upgrade on Sept. 16, students should be able to access their WebCT and SacLink e-mails and conduct University business all with a single login.

“I got a lot of complaints from students when I got here that they have to remember multiple logins or that they have to log in multiple times,” said Larry Gilbert, vice president and chief information officer of Information Resources and Technology.

This should solve the problem. But there is a catch.

Currently first-time freshmen and new transfer students no longer have the option to have university e-mails forwarded to their private e-mail accounts.

These students login to their SacLink e-mails. The rest of the student population receives messages through forwarding if they previously set up the option.

“The overall plan is to move all students to campus e-mail without forwarding,” Gilbert said.

Some students feel this is not user friendly and will create more problems if they forget to check their MySacState e-mails.

“It would be too much of a hassle. I don’t want to look at a lot of e-mail accounts to check school messages,” said senior English major Kate Casarino.

Gilbert said there are several reasons administration is moving in this direction.

“Last year when MySacState messaging was used for the first time, they had about 30 percent of the personal e-mails sent out for financial aid bounce back,” he said.

Often students enter e-mail addresses incorrectly or change them frequently. Gilbert wants to cut down on the confusion and make one reliable destination for all campus needs, the new MySacState.

“If we have thousands of students who continue to use their personal e-mail to receive campus e-mail and don’t make the switch to direct use of campus e-mail, we are not going to stop forwarding e-mail to those students, as this would decrease the reliability of the e-mail, so we can’t do that.”

Gilbert has dealt with the same situation at his previous position at Western Washington University.

“We had the same push back from existing students that were used to using their private e-mail. What we found though is that 80 percent of new students even though they had the choice of forwarding or not forwarding their e-mail chose to not forward their e-mail, because they found it more useful and convenient to use the campus e-mail.”

But some students wonder what about during the summer when they are not frequently checking their MySacState. When the forwarding does eventually stop, they will simply have to check it.

“All we are really asking the students to do is behave responsibly and work with us to make sure they receive the messaging,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert is not sure when they will eliminate the forwarding option, perhaps sometime in the next year or farther on down the road.

The first step is to get students comfortable using MySacState for all their needs including e-mail.

“I never check it (SacLink e-mail) unless I am at school. If I knew e-mail was only through SacLink and it came to that point I would check it everyday,” said junior biology major Veeramrit Randhawa.

Chloe Daley can be reached at [email protected]