Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
After numerous complaints about the new Reserved Students emails, both from confused students and from senders irritated that their messages were not being read, ITS has revamped its policy regarding the widely used email alias.
ITS representative Adam James outlined the updated Reserved Students policy in a press conference this morning. The new system will compile all student-bound emails in a given week into one extended “Reserved Students Bulletin.” The Bulletin will be broken up into fifteen sections, and each will be sent separately so that individual submissions are not “lost in the sea of text,” as stated in the official press release.
To offset the confusion brought on by inconsistent text formatting, the new emails will be encoded in “Magic Eye” format and sent as an attached image. “Bypassing text entirely allows us to provide Swarthmore email users with an unparalleled Reserved Students experience,” said James.
To address complaints that nobody reads the Reserved Students emails, ITS followed in the footsteps of the Weekly News, offering prizes as an incentive to those who carefully read the emails. Students who can demonstrate a thorough understanding of a given week’s Reserved Students Bulletin will receive a free copy of R.S. Seropian’s seminal production, “On the Catharsis of Odysseus: An Audio-Visual Exploration of the Subatomic World via Classical Literature.”
Students were enthusiastic about the new policy. “By combining all of a week’s emails into one volume, I won’t have to worry about missing a crucial notice anymore,” enthused Colin Jucovy Swisher Kim III ’06. “And separating the Bulletin into chunks maintains the old-school feel of multiple new messages flooding your inbox. It’s a combination of progression and regression that makes me feel like nothing’s changed at all!”
