Kaitlyn Coogan
News Editor
After years of frustration, Keene State College students will now have email addresses that end with keene.edu.
The previous email address, ksc.mailcruiser.com, was developed about 11 years ago and stopped students from getting benefits from online providers such as College Budget, Amazon, and Intern Match. Since the old email ended in .com instead of .edu, the address was not recognized as a valid college email.
Students could not receive free two-day shipping from Amazon, could not receive merchandise benefits from College Budget, and could not receive internships from Intern Match. Not only does the ending .com throw off the websites listed above, but also Mailcruiser is unknown as a college email server.
Students, starting next year, will be able to acquire the benefits listed above and many more. They will also be able to forward their emails to another address if desired. Forwarding emails will be an option for each student, and it will not be necessary. So for those students who wish to keep their school email separate from their personal email then they can. According to Laura Seraichick, chief information officer of the information technology group, students have been asking about having a keene.edu email address for a while now. “I am thrilled that we can do it. It’s not that difficult to do it, it’s not that costly to do. It’s a benefit for us, it’s a benefit for students,” Seraichick said.
Seraichick said she looked at how the email could be changed to keene.edu, be able to forward mail, as well as offer some of the benefits MyKSC provides. This summer the school will be paying $1,000 to see to the changing of the email for all students attending KSC and incoming freshmen, changing the navigation server to be more easily accessible as well as having the new mobile available for use.
There was a worry about emails being lost because of being sent to the old ksc.mailcruiser.com email, but, according to Seraichick, this is not a problem. Seraichick said that, even without the students’ realization, the emails will be forwarded to the new address.
In the fall of next year, the MyKSC page will have a few changes that, according to Seraichick, students have been wanting. The email and the calendar will be updated to Microsoft Live Account so that there will be more storage space, as well as having a working address book. Also in the fall, Seraichick will gather a group of students, faculty, and staff to ask about the broadcast and survey features on MyKSC. At the moment, the survey tool only allows faculty to survey the whole campus and only allows students to survey classes. Seraichick said she will look at whether the survey tool should be available to all students for their use.
Seraichick said she encourages students who are available this summer or next fall to talk to her about the changes to the server.
“I am looking for any students who will be around this summer who want to have some input,” Seraichick said. If students are interesting in the changes or even have some changed they would like to see contact Seraichick at lseraich@keene.edu.
Kaitlyn Coogan can be contacted at
kcoogan@keene-equinox.com.