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Introduction
The university recently decided to end the provision of alumni email accounts for life, citing a recent cyber incident and the risks of dormant accounts. While cybersecurity is critical, abandoning a core service is an extreme overreaction. We propose that the Student Union campaigns to reinstate alumni emails, urging the university to mitigate risks rather than punishing graduates.
Key Arguments for Reinstatement:
Security risks require mitigation, not abandonment: Vulnerabilities exist in all digital systems. When Canvas recently suffered a massive cyber incident, the university didn't revert to teaching with pen and paper; they worked to secure it. The university has admitted that long-standing accounts lack modern security measures like mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). The solution is to implement MFA, not to scrap the system entirely.
Value for money and university prestige: Students pay substantial tuition fees, and lifelong email access is a standard benefit provided by the vast majority of prestigious universities. As a leading Russell Group institution, UoB should maintain this standard.
A transactional relationship: Revoking this service sends a clear message to graduates: the university stops caring about you the moment you stop paying fees. While alternative contact methods have been suggested, they lack the professional weight and reliability of an official .ac.uk address for early-career networking.
Damaging future alumni support: Alumni who feel disregarded are significantly less likely to give back to the university. This short-sighted decision will likely reduce future mentoring, industry placements, and financial donations.
A Proposed Compromise and Implementation Plan:
To address the university's security concerns regarding dormant accounts, we propose implementing a strict 12-month inactivity policy and mandatory MFA for all users. Here is how this should be rolled out across different cohorts:
Pre-2025/26 Alumni (Existing Accounts): Halt the planned permanent closure scheduled for 14 September 2026. Instead, require these alumni to set up MFA to keep their accounts active. Any accounts that remain inactive or fail to set up MFA after a 12-month warning period should be deleted.
2025/26 Graduates: These students are currently only receiving a 120-day extension of their student accounts. The university should immediately convert these into standard alumni accounts, ensuring they are protected by MFA from day one.
Future Graduates: Reintroduce the automatic provisioning of alumni accounts upon graduation. To prevent future bulk dormancy, make the creation of an alumni account an "opt-in" process during graduation, inherently tied to setting up MFA.