[454] MTSU Student E-mail Moves to Microsoft, Adds More Space

Release date: May 5, 2010


News & Public Affairs contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
ITD contact: Tom Wallace, 615-898-2512 or twallace@mtsu.edu

MTSU Student E-mail Moves to Microsoft, Adds More Space


(MURFREESBORO, TN) – Change will be in the air — or at least in cyberspace —for student e-mail accounts.
Shortly after spring commencement, MTSU students will receive new Microsoft Live@edu e-mail accounts at no cost to the university, said Tom Wallace, associate vice president in the Information Technology Division.
A student e-mail address that had been xyz2v@mtsu.edu before May 8 now will be xyz2v@mtmail.mtsu.edu by the evening of May 10, Wallace said. When the switch is made, students will receive e-mails with instructions on accessing their new mailboxes.
“The advantage to this is that Microsoft is able to offer more space to students,” said Wallace, who added that students must activate their accounts and register new passwords.
ITD is making this switch, which has been in the works for about a year, in partnership with MTSU’s Student Government Association. The SGA has “overwhelmingly supported this project from the beginning,” Wallace said.
“The current e-mail allows for students to have 20 megabytes of space,” said Brandon McNary, SGA president. “The new e-mail system through Microsoft will allow students to have 10 gigabytes of e-mail space, which is comparable to a Google (Gmail) account.
“It will also allow for 25 gigabytes of file sharing with teachers or other students.”
Wallace said the student e-mail account list, which also includes alumni who have registered to keep their student accounts after graduation, has grown to 77,000.
“The constraint for ITD: Expanding e-mail server space cost us a lot,” he said. “Microsoft, as big as they are, is able to offer it at no charge. This is a service to the university.”
Wallace said other hosting services were considered as the new e-mail provider, but MTSU officials believed “Microsoft was a better fit when comparing services.”
McNary said e-mail was “an issue that students have come to the SGA about for years. Our current e-mail accounts are constantly over quota, and teachers have a hard time sending out the notes or PowerPoints from class due to our minimal amount of space.”
Unlike other e-mail accounts, the Microsoft Live@edu accounts contain no advertising, Wallace said. He added that mail sent to the old addresses will be forwarded automatically to students’ new e-mail addresses.
Alana Turner, ITD communication technology analyst, server, classrooms and desktop services specialist, served as project manager for the switch.

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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.


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