Email Communication

Op12.02-4 Email Communications

Policy statement

Email is an official means of communication for Missouri State University. Unless law, contract, or other university policy prohibits email communication or requires another form of communication, Missouri State University may send email communications to faculty, staff, students and others within the university community to their Missouri State University email address. It is expected these emails will be read by recipients within a reasonable amount of time, as some email communications may be time-sensitive. All individuals assigned a Missouri State University email account are expected to use and maintain their email account.

Archiving

For records management purposes, the university will take technical measures to ensure emails sent or received by certain key decision-makers are preserved, including:

• Members of the President’s Cabinet
• University employees delegated contracting authority to commit university resources of $25,000 or greater; and
• Other individuals designated by the president, general counsel, director of internal audit and risk management, and/or the chief information officer.

Spam email

Spam email is defined as unsolicited, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages sent electronically, typically for commercial, deceptive, or malicious purposes.  Spam email may include, but is not limited to, advertising content, solicitations, phishing attempts, malware, or fraudulent activity. Using University technology resources to distribute spam email is prohibited. 

Mass email

Messages sent to an entire group of one or more of the following: faculty, staff, students, emeritus and/or alumni are considered mass emails.

Mass emails must be approved by a member of the President’s Cabinet or their designee.

The vice president for marketing and communications sets the guidelines and procedures for mass emails.

Targeted email

Targeted emails are messages directed to specific people based on a variety of attributes, including but not limited to, members of groups, role at the University, declared major, course participant, etc. 

Targeted emails must be relevant to their recipients and limited to University business.

Violation of this policy may result in suspension of email privileges and/or other computing resources.