Bulk E-mail Policy

E-mail remains an important tool for both administrative and academic communications at Saint Xavier University. The purpose of the Bulk E-mail Policy is to provide guidance and establish procedures for large volume electronic mailings, also called mass mailings or bulk mailings, to the campus community and external constituencies. For the purposes of this document, a large volume mailing will be defined as one that is sent to 50 or more recipients other than self-subscribed mailing lists or discussion groups. Nothing in this policy is intended to hinder communication between an instructor and his or her students.

Options for Getting Your Message Out

The best way to get your message out to a general University audience including faculty, staff and students, is to submit the announcement to the University's daily newsletter Saint Xavier Today. Generally, requests for mailings to a large University audience will be denied in favor of using Saint Xavier Today. For ongoing messages between constituents you would be better served by using an e-mail discussion list.

It should also be noted that large volume electronic mailings are not without cost. In addition to staff time and effort to prepare the mailing, there will be an impact on network bandwidth when a large volume mailing is sent out. When the recipients include members of the campus community whose e-mail accounts are on our own systems, disk space will be consumed as a copy of the message is delivered to each local mailbox.

Requesting a Mass Mailing

The Office of Web Development will provide for the distribution of bulk e-mail to the campus community and external constituencies under a system of administrative approvals. The following information is required for each request:

  1. Department/division permission
  2. One-week notice
  3. Standard or custom template
  4. Mailing list
  5. Return address and subject line
  6. Properly formatted, proofed and approved content
  7. Confirmation of message details

Department/Division Permission

Faculty or staff members wishing to send a mass mailing must obtain permission from their appropriate dean, director or administrator. Recognized student organizations must obtain permission from the Director of Campus Life. Requests for large volume electronic mailings will not be accepted from individual students. The requestor assumes all responsibility for securing proper approvals before the request is submitted to Web Development.

One-Week Notice

Under normal circumstances mass mailings will be timed in an effort to avoid interference with other e-mail and network traffic. It should be noted that depending on message size, number of recipients, and competition for network bandwidth, it may take several hours or even a couple days for the completion of a mass mailing. One reason for this is that Internet mail servers are generally configured so as to allow for network outages and down systems by retrying to send an undeliverable message for some period of time before returning it to the sender.

Your request for a mass mailing should be made at least a week prior to the day you would like it sent. A "last minute" mass mailing is a contradiction in terms. There likely would not be enough time to send it and the number of recipients who actually read it prior to its content becoming outdated is likely to be low. Plan ahead so that your mass mailing may be properly prepared and scheduled.

Standard or Custom Template

The Office of Web Development provides a selection of graphical templates for bulk e-mail use. All e-mail sent must use one of these approved templates, with the exception of those for which a customized template has been created.
Custom templates are only available for campaigns that include a printed publication counterpart. In these cases, an e-mail template will be created to complement the design of the printed publication. Note that this option requires an additional week of lead-time.

Mailing List

The requestor is responsible for obtaining a properly formatted electronic mailing list. Generally this will require the extraction of e-mail addresses from Colleague or Raiser's Edge, but other lists presented on properly formatted electronic media may be acceptable. Lists provided in handwritten or other hard copy formats are not acceptable.

Note that e-mail addresses obtained from the University database are to be handled with special care with regard to privacy and proper use. Persons in possession of e-mail address data may not sell, rent or otherwise distribute such data other than in accordance with approved University policy. Up-to-date copies of mailing lists must be obtained for each mailing in order to comply with the University’s opt-out policy.

Return Address and Subject Line

Each request for a mass mailing must include a return address to which the recipient may reply and to which undeliverable mail will be returned. A subject line for the e-mail message is also required.

Properly Formatted, Proofed and Approved Content

Lastly, the content, or text, of the e-mail message must be provided in an electronic format. The accuracy, spelling and grammar of the text are the requestor’s responsibility, although content and formatting may be modified at the discretion of the Office of Web Development. Text must be written for Web consumption, using simple and active language, and concise, scannable paragraphs.

The director of Web development may reject a proposed mass mailing for not serving or not being consistent with the University mission, violating established University policy, being irrelevant for a proposed audience, or being too large or poorly constructed.

Confirmation of Message Details

Upon preparing a mailing, Web Development staff will e-mail the requestor to confirm the message details. This message will include a preview of the formatted e-mail message as an attachment. The requestor must reply to affirm the accuracy of the message and related information before the mailing will be scheduled.

Scheduling of Mailings

All mailings will be scheduled to be sent overnight, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., so as to not interfere with network traffic during business hours.

Exceptions to this policy will be made only in the case of communication regarding emergency situations on campus.

Disclaimers

Although all students and most faculty and staff members have e-mail addresses, there is no guarantee that messages are retrieved and read in a timely manner. Further, it cannot be guaranteed that a recipient will read your mail since most e-mail programs have the ability to filter out messages based on user-defined preferences.

Messages to some recipients may be undeliverable if their mailboxes are full; that is, if their allowed disk space has already been used.

When assembling your list of e-mail recipients you must be aware of the fact that some persons in our database have indicated their preference of not receiving mail from the University, so all members of your intended audience may not receive the message.