The University recently partnered with Google to set up Vmail, a new alumni e-mail system that launched last Wednesday. Prior to this new service, alumni used e-mail forwarding to continue use of their University accounts.
Of the 25,000 addresses in the old system, many of which were dormant, 11,200 have already transferred their accounts to Vmail, said Zach Wheat, Vmail project manager and director of interactive media.
Wheat said the change was necessary because e-mail forwarding, in general, is becoming less and less reliable.
"Forwarding addresses tend to get caught with spam more than regular addresses such as Gmail and Yahoo," he explained. With the University's old forwarding system, some e-mail addresses would get corrupted and e-mails to graduates' University addresses would never reach their main e-mail accounts, thus becoming lost in cyberspace.
In 1995, when the forwarding system began, the University was dealing with significant budget constraints and it was the cheapest option, Wheat explained. The switch to Vmail, he said, had no cost associated with it.
"The University signed a rather wide-ranging agreement with Google for students," he said. "We piggy-backed the alumni e-mail system."
The Vmail addresses end with "@alumni.virginia.edu," allowing alumni to show their pride and association with the school, explained Robert Viccellio, vice president of communications for the Alumni Association.
"It's particularly helpful when someone is looking for a job or applying to graduate school," Wheat noted.
Clarification: A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that "Of the 25,000 addresses in the old system, several of which were dormant, 11,200 have already transferred their accounts to Vmail." The article has since been clarified to state that many of the addresses were dormant prior to the transition to Vmail.
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