All-Campus E-mails Useful

Last week the Dean of Students office sent an e-mail message to all undergraduates informing them of the activities of Harvard organizations. This e-mail is a great way to let students know what is happening throughout the campus without bombarding them with individual e-mails from each organization. We would like to see two such e-mails, taking the form of a campus calendar, sent every month.

The multitude of organizations at Harvard increases the isolation of clubs from each other and other students. This e-mail, although it could be used for recruiting purposes, would even more effectively be used to tell students about the events different clubs have planned, and when these events will take place. We would also like to see the Digitas Web page used as a campus organization events calendar. Alternatively, the Dean of Students office could even create a separate calendar page.

Allowing each club access to all students' e-mail accounts for publicity might lead to bombardment of e-mail accounts and leave recipients frustrated. Since in this case all the information is sent through the Dean of Students office, it can be contained in one e-mail. Twice a month is often enough to have some idea of what other organizations are doing without cluttering up e-mail boxes. E-mails are easily deletable should you not choose to read them, and like many other e-mail lists, could easily have an "unsubscribe" option. And they save trees.