You've got mail.
But is the system good enough?
At its Thursday meeting, ASMSU's Student Assembly voted to "urge the appropriate administrators" to enhance MSU's Webmail service to become bigger, faster and more in line with today's basic e-mail systems.
"Our technology on campus has come a long way, but our e-mail system needs some upgrades," said Scott Lachman, vice chairperson for student funding.
Lachman said problems under the current mail system include a lack of font options, automatic spell check, colors, HTML support and limited storage space — 128 megabytes.
The bill calls for Student Assembly Chairperson Roger Ludy to speak with administrators about the system. Ludy could not be reached for comment.
James Young, a general business administration senior, has lost sleep thanks to www.mail.msu.edu.
"I've had problems with the MSU e-mails since I was a freshman — just being slow and unreliable," he said. "I'll get messages after class cancellations, after I walked to the class and came back."
An MSU e-mail team constantly looks to improve the MSU system, with one of the biggest challenges coming from spam content, said Rich Wiggins, senior informational technologist for MSU's Academic Computing and Network Services.
Wiggins said MSU has implemented a technique called greylisting, which he compared to a delivery person knocking on your door.
"When mail comes from an unknown source, the technology doesn't answer the door, and a lot of spammers won't try again," he said. "A legitimate mailer will try again, and we'll open the door."
Having mail forwarded has become an easy solution.
"It's just way too slow," political science senior Sean Sullivan said. Sullivan has had his e-mail forwarded to his Gmail account for two years because of the deficiency in the university's Webmail. "They don't have enough storage space for the e-mail I get."
Gmail is a free e-mail service offered by Google Inc.
In December, Canada's Lakehead University outsourced its university e-mail system through Gmail, allowing students and staff approximately 2,800 megabytes of space per account at no cost.
"It's cumbersome," said Brian Silver, a political science professor. "It's like something constructed out of the 1960s. I'm old enough to recognize something out of the 1960s. It's pretty antiquated."
Silver said he has his spam e-mail refiltered by his Apple mail because MSU's filter is insufficient.
For nursing sophomore Kelly Deason, MSU's e-mail system is suitable for her work as a receptionist at Case Hall.
"I like it. It's easy to send e-mails out. I use it for work. But I don't like how much spam is allowed. I would support (an upgrade)," she said.
