For many Wellesley students, the amount of emails they’ve received this semester has substantially decreased as a result of the termination of Google Groups, which allowed any student on campus to email the entire student body. However, for those who have missed the constant flow of flyers, meeting reminders and upcoming lecture dates, a new opt-in Google Group has been created. The Group, which was created Feb. 26, had 383 members as of Mar. 3.
Ellie Czepie ’20, the new Google Group’s creator, said she first came up with the idea last semester when the idea to get rid of the previous Google Group system was originally proposed. While the idea started out as a joke among friends, Czepie later created the group to address issues she noticed on campus resulting from the policy change.
“All the reactions I’ve heard so far have been positive — lots of people have been excited to forward it to all their friends and help spread the word. I think because it’s an opt-in system I wouldn’t necessarily be hearing the negative reactions because anyone who’d be upset by it just doesn’t have to join,” she said.
According to Czepie, the two main issues she noticed were the challenges to campus organizations in publicizing their events and the lack of student awareness about activities happening around campus. These are issues that have been echoed by students and orgs across the board. In an interview with the Wellesley News last month, Japan Club cited the lack of Google Groups as a reason for lower than usual turn out at their annual Yuki Matsuri.
One of the main differences between this Google Group and the previous system, besides that the new one is opt-in, is that official College emails and orgs publicizing events are no longer using the same line of community. According to Czepie, with the old system, students were hesitant to turn on the digest for fear of missing out on an important email from school administration or campus offices, such as the registrar or financial services.
“I think it’s really important for people to have access to resources about what’s happening on campus, whether or not they choose to use them,” Czepie said.
According to Czepie, the main purpose of the new Group, which is titled “All school emails_Here we go again,” is for students to gain more awareness about events and issues happening on campus.
“I wanted to create it and put it out there for Wellesley students to use, but I see it as more of a collectively maintained resource for whoever opts in rather than as a system that I built and want to run,” Czepia said. “I’m a senior and one of my biggest hopes for this is that it outlasts me on campus and is useful even after I’m no longer part of it.”
For those interested in joining the Group, visit bit.ly/allschoolemails.
