Updated: 02/07/20

 

In the When to use your @mtroyal.ca email  address article, I outlined some general guidelines on how to determine which email address you should use for creating accounts and accessing online services.  This article generated a slew of questions related to availability of email accounts once someone leaves the University.  I thought it would be helpful to clarify who gets to keep their accounts, under which circumstances and why.

Our email policy states

The University provides an email account to all faculty, staff and students to be used in the course of their duties or activities at the University. The University may also provide an email account for alumni, retirees, and professor emeriti, as well as other at the discretion of the University.

All email accounts and associated addresses are the property of the University.

So what does this actually mean and how is this policy implemented? Well that depends on who you are and under what circumstances you leave the University.

• If you are a staff member your access to your email will be terminated regardless of why you leave. This is to ensure business continuity.
• If you are a faculty member the same rule applies unless you are leaving due to retirement. Retired faculty members get to keep their emails as long as they adhere to the email policy. This is part of their collective agreement.
• Students retain permanent access to their email account.

Regardless of who you are and why you left, the University owns the email account and at any time they can revoke your access. The most common reason is not following the email policy. However it is at the discretion of the University to revoke it for any reason that they deem credible. Some of those reasons may be a change in policy or a change in email provider.

Therefore you should never consider your @mtroyal.ca email account to be yours for life. It is yours until the University decides it is not.  That is why I suggested all MRU account holders follow the guidelines outlined in  the When to use your @mtroyal.ca email  address article. The guidelines ensures that you maintain access to your accounts even if your access to your @mtroyal.ca email address is lost.

Another thing to consider is FOIP requests. According to the email policy, any email sent with your @mtroyal.ca account is subject to a FOIP request regardless of whether the content of the email is personal in nature or not. If you don’t want your personal emails to show up in a FOIP request, don’t use your @mtroyal.ca account to send them.

If you have any questions about email access or the email policy please contact the Service Desk, they will be happy to help.