Sam Howerton is hoping to offer more privacy to graduate students.
Howerton, president of the Council of Graduate Students, is seeking to limit access to the MSU Web site’s Pilot e-mail directory, permitting access only to registered Pilot users.
The move comes after Howerton received several complaints from constituents about excessive advertisements and solicitations in their Pilot e-mail boxes.
“We get spam for all sorts of businesses that seem to have nothing to do with graduate student life,” he said. “I’m going to assume, maybe boldly, that undergraduates get the same thing.”
Spam is a slang term for unwanted mass e-mails.
E-mail addresses, as well as phone numbers and mailing addresses, are available from a directory accessible through the MSU home page. That, said Howerton, poses a problem.
“How easy do we make it for people to get our information?” he said. “Why should someone who lives across the country or across the world have access to any information about me?”
Kate Thompson, a fisheries and wildlife graduate student, favors the measure even though she has not experienced problems with junk e-mail.
“(Limited access to the directory) would probably be a good thing if people have issues with privacy,” she said.
Ryan Goei, a communication graduate student, said he receives junk mail but opposes limited access to the directory.
“I get junk mail from the places that I sign up to be a member at,” he said. “I would feel like I’d rather have (my listing) public in case someone wants to find me.”
Howerton said he’s received fairly indifferent reactions from the MSU Board of Trustees, the University Graduate Council, MSU Provost Lou Anna Simon, and Graduate School Dean Karen Klomparens.
Lewis Greenberg, director of the MSU Computer Laboratory, said students can already maintain e-mail privacy by notifying the registrar if they don’t want their personal information to be publicly accessible.
However, Greenberg also said not listing an e-mail address doesn’t necessarily guarantee privacy.
“The e-mail is a wide-open system,” he said. “I mail to other people off campus and other places in the world
