Listservs are a seemingly inescapable part of college life. Chances are you’re part of at least a few — depending on your interests, you might be inextricably tied to many lists that seem to compete with each other for the honor of most number of e-mail updates sent. Like it or not, you will be frustrated to receive your Career Development Center updates from not only the CDC, but also from each of your majors, minors and even some of your clubs.
Add to that the sporadic updates from various other lists, like your school’s advising, Residential Life, SA-Line, B-Line or clubs you just can’t seem to quit. It gets to the point where not only are you infuriated by exceeded quotas and 46 new messages, but just to spite them, you send each and every one to your trash unread.
Maybe that’s just me.
Somehow, we seem to have overlooked the point of listservs. While I understand that repetition is unavoidable for those who partake in multiple activities (I’d rather get an e-mail multiple times than none at all), when the repetition is so egregious that we take to instant deletion, it’s gotten to an unpleasant alternative.
As for Reslife, maybe it would be better to simply post activities on Blackboard. Most students are kept on a tight leash because of course postings, so the odds are good that Reslife wouldn’t be losing anything by posting events as Blackboard announcements. Things like housing sign-ups are important enough to merit their own e-mails, but general activities and newsletters would be better served by a less invasive form of contact.
What’s more, there is no reason for us to get the CDC updates from anyone but the CDC. If they have something to tell us, they should do it themselves, without asking each department to forward it individually. Maybe we aren’t really using Blackboard to its full potential. The responsible way to forward career information would include the use of Blackboard and its many communications tools (aside from the e-mails). As much as I dislike Blackboard and the expectations that accompany its use, at least it’s fairly universal for students. If everyone already has to check it, making everyone’s announcements in the same place would certainly simplify the process.
At the very least, there’s something to be said for regularity. If we get one e-mail from Harpur Advising with a weekly set of updates, we’d probably be more likely to read it — as opposed to five e-mails sent sporadically, as if they’d decided maybe it had been a while, and they sent out the first five forwards they clicked on in the same five minutes. If the CDC had its own section of B-Line, departments wouldn’t be responsible for sending out the information and everyone would be guaranteed to see it.
The most basic listserv etiquette stipulates that if there’s an event on campus, it should go on B-Line, and groups shouldn’t send their own individual e-mails. Actually, that should stand as a general rule. If B-Line were more comprehensive, maybe we wouldn’t get so fed up with e-mails and people would be more likely to know what’s going on. If B-Line were given the significance it deserves, instead of being undermined by various subgroups, campus communication would not only be more effective, but less annoying.