That's a problem for the universities wanting to communicate with them.
"My email inbox is constantly being bombarded with emails that are not always relevant to me and as such causes me to delete them out of habit and possibly miss information that I would like to see," according to one student who responded to an anonymous survey the University of Iowa administered in 2023 seeking input on student, faculty and staff communication preferences.
"Stop putting me on email lists that flood my inbox with everything from Greek life to HawkShop Ads," another student wrote.
So that's what the UI Office of the Vice President for External Relations is doing in partnership with the UI Office of Strategic Communication — following many of its peer campuses that already have "mass email" policies in place.
"The cumulative amount of time spent by faculty, staff, and students processing unwanted email represents an enormous loss of personal and institutional productivity," according to a UI mass communications policy that took effect last week.
"For email to remain a relevant means of communication, it must be strategic. Using email impersonally or indiscriminately will harm the credibility of the university and make our faculty, staff, and students less likely to read email that would be of importance or of interest to them."
The new policy will govern use of the campus' four officially administered mass email lists for "all faculty," "all staff," "all undergraduate students" and "all graduate students" with the aim to:
- Establish guidelines for appropriate mass-email use;
- Curtail the number of emails sent to faculty, staff and students;
- Comply with federal law and best-practice expectations of faculty, staff and students;
- Ensure mass emails that do go out are "accessible, concise, consistent, and coordinated";
- And preserve the effectiveness of email without "unduly restricting the free flow of information."
"The new policy is focused on the needs of the audiences receiving messages rather than solely on the needs of the sender," UI Vice President for External Relations Peter Matthes said in a statement. "While email is a reliable and easy way to communicate and share information, it is not always the best tool."
'NOT EVEN READING'
Under the new policy, senders must file mass-email requests to be evaluated by the UI Office of Strategic Communication — which will determine whether the requested email includes information pertaining to a majority of the recipients, is critical or time sensitive, and meets one or more of five standards:
- It alerts the campus about health and safety risks — like a Hawk Alert;
- It provides essential information to the operation or execution of university business;
- It notifies the campus about changes in governance, policy or practice;
- It informs employees about benefits, payroll, tax or other human resource issues;
- And it communicates important information from the UI president, provost or other leader.
The policy also permits mass emails seeking faculty, staff and student participants in research studies and emails seeking participation in employee surveys.
It doesn't restrict group emails to subsets of the larger lists — like faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, for example, or students living in the residence halls.
"Colleges and units that previously used mass email to solicit enrollment in university programs, events, and services should use more targeted communications to reach their specific audiences," according to the policy, which states the following no longer are allowed:
- Emails seeking enrollment in a UI-sponsored program, class, service or event;
- Notifications about upcoming events, fairs, lectures or activities;
- Emails seeking volunteers for things like the Iowa State Fair or orientation;
- Or "calls to action" including reminders to enroll in classes or register for a training.
"I understand emails currently serve as a main channel for clubs to spread word about their events," one student wrote in response to the survey. "But I find myself constantly swiping away at them and not even reading beyond the subject line."
1,600 MASS EMAILS
The new policy comes nearly seven years after the UI Office of Strategic Communications first tried to adopt a mass communications policy in 2018 — when Information Technology Services paused the effort due to hesitancy about limiting access to the mass-email tool. At that time, the university determined about 1,600 mass emails were sent annually.
Five years later, UI Strategic Communications again aimed to address the mass-email issue by administering the survey. Of the 3,690 respondents, more than 1,400 offered open-ended comments — at least half of which complained about the volume of email.
"Students in particular complained the volume of emails made it hard to find the important information and often meant they didn't bother to read any emails," UI spokeswoman Jeneane Beck said.
One student, for example, wrote, "I get 40 emails a day and can't sift through them all."
Faculty too complained via the survey.
"The volume of emails sent to faculty on a daily basis is obscene and unmanageable," one person wrote in all caps. "Ninety-nine percent of the email I consider to be spam and highly invasive."
Last summer, Matthes convened a committee of representatives from across campus charged with creating policies that use best practices and research to maximize email effectiveness. That group evaluated policies across its peer campuses — including the Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska and Oregon.
Although Iowa State University has a process in place requiring mass-email senders to first file a request, the University of Northern Iowa doesn't yet have a policy but officials said, "We are working to revise our broader existing university communication policy."
Based on its research, the UI committee drafted a mass communications policy that went live Jan. 13. And members will keep working to improve mass-email use on campus — while also finding other communication solutions.
"If a mass email request is not approved, the Office of Strategic Communication will consult with the requester to suggest other ways of sharing the information, based on the audience," according to UI officials. "For example, information about an event for undergraduate students would not be allowed as a mass email, but a social media post would likely reach the audience with more success."
©2025 The Gazette, Iowa. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
