Account Retention Policy

Student Email Account Retention Privileges

How long do I get to keep my student email account after graduation?

Summary

Graduating students are currently permitted to continue use of the University-provided email account so long as they access it at least every 90 days.  This is a good-faith effort by the University, but not a guarantee of continued availability. Details follow.

General Policy

The University of South Alabama issues email accounts to admitted students for the purposes of official communications.  Students will continue to have access when enrolled or in an admitted state in which they can enroll for classes.  The University does not have a program for issuing new accounts for alumni, but graduating students are permitted to continue use of their email addresses.  Various contractual limitations prevent the University from issuing new email accounts within the student email system, unless the individual meets the requirements of an admitted/enrolled student.

Retention by Graduating Students

University policy is to grant graduating students indefinite access to their email accounts. This is not a guarantee of a perpetual account, and may be changed in future depending on budgetary or contractual constraints on the University. The University would provide advance email notification of such changes.

Abandoned/Unused Alumni Accounts

Alumni accounts which have not been accessed for 90 days will be considered abandoned and will be disabled. This is to prevent malicious use by third parties and protect any personal information which graduating students may have left in their accounts. Disabled accounts will be retained for an additional 90 days, during which time the account holder may request reinstatement by contacting Computer Services Center Help Desk (email helpdesk@southalabama.edu, telephone (251) 460-6161). Disabled accounts will be deleted if a reinstatement request is not received within the 90 day retention period. Deleted accounts will not be recreated and all messages within the account will be expunged and not recoverable.

Non-Migrated Jaguar1 Accounts

During the migration to Google Apps from the Jaguar1 email system, eligible account holders were all notified of their option to migrate. We retained the Jaguar1 message stores for a calendar year after the primary migration, at which point all non-migrated account data was purged.  These non-migrated accounts cannot be reinstated.