Graduating Seniors' Email

This page outlines how Information Technology Services (ITS) and the Alumni Office can help you transition from your Colby email to a Colby Alumni life-long alumni email address. 

Colby's Alumni Office can provide you with a free life-long email forwarding service, so you can maintain a consistent email address which identifies you as a Colby graduate.  Your Alumni email address can be used as an “alias” for any other email address that you will use after graduation.   Whenever you change email accounts, you update your alumni forward to point to your new email account.

ITS deletes all graduated senior's accounts on the first working day of September following graduation (generally 9/1), except for seniors who have asked for an account extension (see below) or seniors who have been hired by the College as regular employees.  At account deletion time, your Colby computer account and password will cease to function.  You will no longer have access to your email on Colby's mail servers, password-protected webpages, or other files left on Colby computers.  These files and email messages will be removed from Colby computers.  If you have personal webpages or other files that are important to you, then you should save them elsewhere before this date.    Please consult with the Support Center (x4224) if you need help with this.

If you do nothing, what will happen?

If ITS does not hear from you at all, you will become user unknown in the world of email on September 1, 2009.  After account deletion, any mail sent to your @colby.edu email address  will bounce back to the sender, with a "user unknown" message. If you don't want to become "user unknown", ITS can either redirect your email or extend the life of your computer account.

If e-mail is important to you!!

Here are the steps needed to set up an Alumni email forward, and then set a redirect on Colby's email server to advertise your alumni address:

1.  Obtain an email account elsewhere.  You may already have one at Hotmail or Gmail.  Or you may have a new email account at your workplace or graduate school.  Make sure this email account works before proceeding further.

2.  Change your information in the Colby Alumni Network (CAN):

• If you are not registered in CAN then send email to AlumniNetwork@colby.edu or come to the Alumni Relations Office in the Schair-Swenson-Watson Alumni Center to get your Alumni ID number.  This number will allow you to set an alumni password, and also use CAN in the future.  Once you have your number, go to http://www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/CLY/register/register.cgi and register. Be sure to choose a password that IS NOT your current Colby email password; your Colby password will not work for this system.  You will need to log in using your new account.
  

• If you have already registered for the Alumni Directory, go to the directory at http://www.colby.edu/alumni/ and click the CAN logo on the right.  Remember  -- you will need to enter your alumni password, not your Colby password.

3.  Once you are logged into CAN, choose "Email Forwarding" from the links on the left.  You will see your “default Permanent Email Address” which is your alumni address. You can keep this address, or change it to your preferred name. For example, you can change jadoe@alum.colby.edu to Jane.Doe@alum.colby.edu .  You will have the option to change your email name only once.   Next, go to the “active box” and enter your final destination email address (for example, jadoe@hotmail.com).  You can change this address at any time.

4.  Click the "continue" button, and review your choices carefully.  If all is correct, click the "activate" button. Then close your browser or the next step will not work otherwise.

5.  Reopen your browser and go to this webpage to set a redirect before September 1.  Choose "E-Mail Forward or Redirect". Log in with your Colby password (not your alumni password). Read the directions!  At the bottom of the page, check the “redirect” button and enter your new alumni email address (Jane.Doe@alum.colby.edu) and a date prior to September 1 that you want your redirect to start.  The end date does not matter; redirects stay in place for approximately six months.

Important!   Test your alumni email forward, or you will lose email after the Colby redirect starts.  After doing step 3, it may take a day or so for the alumni forward to be set up.  Test it the next day by sending email to your @alum.colby.edu address.  Your message should arrive at the final destination mailbox (eg, jadoe@hotmail.com) within a few minutes.   If not, then check your work in steps 3-5.

What will happen after the redirect on Colby's email server starts?         

Email sent to your jadoe@colby.edu address will bounce back to the sender. The body of the returned message will say " User has moved; please try <jadoe@alum.colby.edu>", where the address in brackets is what you entered  in step 5.  The sender will have to note your new email address and resend the message.  While the bounced message may be a pain for the sender, they will learn that you have moved and what your new email address is.

An active Colby account is not needed for email redirects to work, so ITS will still DELETE your account on 9/1/2009 even if you ask for a redirect.

If you need to keep your account for a while

  You can also opt to keep your Colby account active until 12/15/2009. For this service, you will need to come to 101 Lovejoy in person, and see Jeff Earickson. Please bring your ID card. Sorry, but we will NOT extend accounts by email or telephone, so plan ahead. The process of marking your account as a "keeper" only takes a few seconds. After 12/15/2009, ITS can then set you up with mail redirection as discussed above.