You soon might be receiving mail in an e-mail account you never knew existed.
At the beginning of Summer Semester, the U began to use the university-sponsored UMail system for all official communication with students and faculty.
Administrators opted to switch to UMail as a way to ensure that students actually receive e-mails sent to them by the administration.
“We just needed some form of official communication with everyone,” said Steve Hess, associate vice president for information technology.
All students and faculty members at the U have a UMail address. Through UMail, all students and staff are placed in the university directory, giving academic departments, student services and the administration a means to contact everyone on campus.
UMail can be accessed through the my.utah.edu homepage or directly at www.umail.utah.edu with a student ID and password.
Despite notice of the change, some UMail accounts remain inactive, or their users haven’t set up forwarding services to active third-party e-mail accounts they may have.
Brandon Miner, a junior in computer sciences and employee at the Marriott Library, said he had heard the administration had switched to UMail, but he had never checked his account.
When he opened his UMail account, Miner had 20 missed messages, which he said was “general work stuff.”
Miner soon forwarded messages sent to his UMail account to a personal e-mail address.
Amanda Sanchez, a junior in international studies, was not aware that the U had been using the new system and only recalled using her UMail address to set up an account with Facebook.
After checking her account, Sanchez discovered 15 pages of e-mails from her Facebook account.