BLUF: Several alums met with the relevant folks at HAA, HUIT, etc. and were told that their goal is to provide every grad with a Harvard email address. They want to stick with forwarding and think they have some promising options for vendors. The primary reason for favoring forwarding over email inboxes is a concern expressed by the Harvard legal team who fear being overwhelmed by discovery requests if they offer actual email (there is apparently a different legal standard for email vs. forwards). If forwarding doesn't pan out, they will look into full email accounts for alums. They will beta test a new system with the classes of '21 and '22 who were not given Harvard email addresses when they graduated. Beta test is currently planned for late spring/summer '23.

Meeting notes:

Last Friday, December 16 several alums met with representatives of HAA, HUIT, and the administration. Present at the meeting were:

• Brian Lee, VP for Alumni Affairs and Development
• Philip Lovejoy, outgoing Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Executive Director
• Sarah Karmon, incoming HAA Executive Director
• Klara Jelinkova, Harvard CIO
• Siovhan O’Connor, Associate VP and COO, Alumni Affairs and Development
• Charlotte Moore (unable to confirm a job title)
• Jason Snyder, Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT) CTO
• Julie Broad, Executive Director, Advancement Solutions
• Colin Kegler ’97 (current HAA Director)
• Patrick Chung ’96 (former HAA Director)
• Ashraf Hegazy ’96, HKS ‘09
• Prashanth Kumar ‘21
• David Huang ‘97
• Helen Fairman ’91

Philip Lovejoy filled us in on developments regarding alumni email as follows:

Since the decision was made to reverse course on terminating alumni email forwarding, the university has been investing in improving the existing email forwarding system while investigating replacements for it.

• The existing system was built for HAA on c. 1997 infrastructure so it’s not up to snuff for current email systems.
• HUIT is now taking the lead for future solutions
• HUIT is investigating replacements including systems built in-house and by outside vendors
• The intent is to give Harvard-branded email addresses to all alums with minimal disruption, allowing people to retain their existing addresses. This will mean grandfathering in all post.harvard addresses, all new addresses going forward will be alumni.harvard.edu
• Plan is to beta test forwarding with classes of '21 and '22 who were not onboarded to forwarding. Beta test target timeframe: late spring early summer ’23
• They are concurrently developing a migration strategy for existing users
• The research they did on forwarding was 4 years ago, delayed during the pandemic, then picked up where they left off - technology has progressed. Philip accepts responsibility for that - they should have redone the research rather than just picking up where they left off.

Re. the full email vs. forwarding question: It’s a decision based on risk, not finances - the issue with full mailboxes (per HUIT) is that Harvard becomes responsible for e-discovery for email on those accounts. This is a concern for the legal team - right now they get huge numbers of discovery requests which they can ignore because they are just forwarding the email. If they instead offer full mailboxes, they must respond.

• Also, once you start creating email boxes, reconfiguration required by alums would reportedly be significant - trying to minimize alumni effort by moving forwarding to another service
• HAA stated that if they are unable to find an email forwarding solution that meets the needs of alumni, they will also consider email inboxes as the solution

Alums in the meeting cited concerns about stability and unreliability of email forwarding - are we just kicking the can down the road? - Julie and Jason are researching. Current goal is forwarding and there are some promising candidates - modestly optimistic.

Class of ’21 reports their student emails being shut down already - this appears to have been an oversight and Jason Snyder said they should be extended and he will investigate.

We reported the ranked list of issues cited in survey responses and read some (anonymous) comments as follows (note: we have to date received 167 comments and 4,561 signatures across 2 petitions on change.org):

• Reneging on a promise:
  Ex: "I've been using this email for many logins and contacts for the last almost 30 years. I'm outraged that they are canceling it and going back on what they promised.”
  Ex: "Breaking this promise of a lifetime forwarding address—which reminds alumni (read: potential donors) of their connection to Harvard every time they send an email—seems so short-sighted!"
• A potential loss of connection with friends/colleagues/classmates/the university:
  Ex: "I am an independent scholar, and I have built an extensive professional network of colleagues, editors, and journalists over three decades. They all have my post address. If it disappears, I disappear from all of those rolodexes. This would be devastating. I would be happy to pay for the post email service; the continuity is really important to my career.”
  Ex: "I have multiple sclerosis, which has meant that I've had to create an "alternative" academic career to accommodate my disability. I used my post address as a permanent contact address for everyone in the far-flung network I've built for myself as an independent scholar -- colleagues, editors, journalists. I am devastated by this decision to end Post forwarding. It's really, really hard to be an independent scholar. I had to work for every bit of the network I built. I feel like I am being erased."
• Concern about how this reflects on the university:
  Ex: "Please keep email forwarding. Maintaining alumni email addresses as promised is an important demonstration of commitment. Removing emails would harm Harvard's reputation and hurt alumni's professional and social lives in ways that will also adversely impact Harvard as an institution longer-term.”
  Ex: “Having this address is really wonderful for all alumni, and has been particularly helpful for credibility as I’ve emailed with Harvard applicants to set up interviews as part of the admissions process. If it weren’t for this address, some of them would wonder if it was really a Harvard alumnus emailing them."
• Added administrative burden on alumni:
  Ex: "I have about 700 online accounts in my password manager, all of which I'm going to have to go through to confirm/change the login for and change the email address for. It's a nontrivial amount of work.”
  Disbelief that Harvard lacks the resources to continue email:
  Ex: "Is Harvard saying that it doesn’t have the resources to maintain a service promised to its alumni that other peer universities are able to continue providing? How unfortunate. Or how disingenuous. I expected more from my alma mater."
• An expressed intent to discontinue donations:
  Ex: "One of Harvard's hallmarks is the amount of effort it spends in nurturing its relationship with its alumni. Suddenly Harvard is pulling the rug from under our feet, destroying the bonds that it has been cultivating for decades. If "forever" no longer means "forever," why would those alumni who have made "forever" gifts to Harvard continue to honor them?”
  Ex: "Dear Harvard: Next time you call me to ask for money, I will decline, and when asked why, I will explain that it is entirely due to this decision on the part of HAA. I don't mean to be difficult, but will cause a mess that I will have to spend many hours untangling. And time is money."

Other concerns mentioned in petition comments included the fact that other schools (and Harvard grad schools) routinely offer alumni email, the value of being identified as a Harvard grad, and a perceived growing disconnect between the HAA/administration and the alumni body.

Philip Lovejoy asked for suggestions as to how to better communicate all of this information with alums and those in the meeting suggested an email laying out the same information they had just shared with us. He indicated an intent to send that email.

Great thanks and appreciation to Helen Fairman for taking these meeting notes and writing this summary of our meeting with Harvard and HAA! Happy Holidays!