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Cougar Tales: Director's Cut (March 2015) 

CofC Email for Life

Remember when email first came out and none of us knew what to choose as our email address? We ended up creating accounts like iheartpuppies@aol.com or ib2beautiful@hotmail.com or HRC@myprecious.com .  As interesting as these names are, they say something about you - you’re obsessed with your dog (who isn’t); you may need therapy, or you’re Hillary Clinton.  The point is, we now know it is wise to be thoughtful about your address.

Depending on when you attended the College of Charleston, your email experience varied significantly.  For example: 

Before 1993: What the heck is email? 

1993 – 2011: Ed_i_what? Edisto.cofc.edu (These email addresses expired after you graduated, that was frustrating.) 

2011 – present: What’s up Google? “g.cofc.edu” is born.  These student email addresses remain usable for…drumroll please…LIFE. No switching, no forwarding, no muss, no fuss.

The reason I bring up this subject is I have learned many of our young alumni are graduating from the College unaware that their student email remains in place for their lifetime.  Your student email was and is powered by Google.  Therefore it performs exactly like your other personal Gmail accounts. The good news is the majority of our young alumni are still utilizing their student email account because they are proud to have CofC in their address.

“Email for life” is a conscious investment by the College to keep you informed about events, programs, celebrations, achievements and anything else that increases the value of your diploma.  It was also designed to maintain your CofC network, which began developing during your undergraduate years; and will only grow larger as the years pass by.  Keeping your CofC email in play helps you and your fellow alumni remain accessible; even as alumni change jobs and work-email addresses over the years.

Oh sure, maybe your closest friends will keep you abreast of their ever changing work-email addresses.  Why not stick with a gold standard (Google) for all your CofC communications and your CofC network?  Stick with your one email address for life - the one you used in college.  Show your Cougar Pride by displaying that @g.cofc.edu address.

To take advantage of this alumni benefit requires very little effort.  Add your CofC account to your Gmail mobile app and Gmail web browser sessions so they are easily accessible via a drop-down selection.  Make it a habit to use your CofC Gmail account when you communicate with fellow alumni.  Reinforce the fact that they can always reach you at your CofC address.

When you see that you have mail in your CofC Gmail account, you can check your inbox when you’re in the mood to see what’s happening at CofC.  It could be your alumni office informing you about an alumni chapter event in your area; because we automatically match your home zip code to the nearest alumni chapter (we have 38 of them!).  Because of the zip code matching, if you live in Boston, you won’t be flooded with notifications about an alumni outing in any of our other 37 alumni chapters.

Can’t Hide the Pride? We didn’t think so….

Jack Huguley '72 
Director of Alumni Relations
College of Charleston
huguleyj@cofc.edu