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Campus Notes is your one-stop shop for news and notes related to Triangle universities and community colleges. We'll cover it all here, from policy discussions to the silly things those crazy college kids are doing. Got an idea? Request? Criticism? Let us know. eric.ferreri@newsobserver.com.

No UNC system rule on multiple e-mail accounts

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The latest news out of N.C. State University involves an e-mail account maintained by former Chancellor James Oblinger. Turns out, the chancellor had two accounts - one for general university business and the other for high-importance stuff requiring a speedy response.

Problem - many of those e-mails are missing. Nobody over at NCSU - in trying to respond to demands from federal authorities - can find the e-mails but are trying to re-create them.

The N&O's Joe Neff has the story here.

It got me to thinking about whether it was standard for campus chancellors to use two e-mail accounts, so I put some questions to Joni Worthington, the UNC system's spokesperson.

Here are the highlights:

 Is it customary for campus chancellors to use two email accounts? If
so, are they told specifically to do so? If not, do some do so? Which
ones?

 I believe that several of the campuses have a "generic" email address for the chancellor (e.g., "chancellor@....) that's posted on the website, etc., that is different from the email address that the chancellor uses in the ordinary course of business. 

There is no question that all email accounts used by a chancellor would be considered public accounts and should be treated accordingly.  There has never been a directive from General Administration advising chancellors to use a second email account, and I do not know which chancellors use dual addresses.

Does President Bowles use two email accounts?

 President Bowles has only one email account.

When a reporter or member of the public requests a chancellor's
emails on a particular topic, are they drawn from all accounts that
chancellor has?

  When responding to documents requests for a chancellor's email (whether from media or the general public), relevant email should be captured from all accounts, whatever the email address.  I certainly believe that to be the University-wide practice.
 There is no problem with a chancellor using more than one university email address, so long as all accounts used in the course of conducting University business are appropriately treated as public accounts.

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No UNC system rule on multiple e-mail accounts

It is silly for the N&O to insinuate that having more than one email account is an ethical violation and there should be an policy forbidding having more than one email account. Having two, one with a public published address and a second with a non-published address, is simple good sense. Otherwise, critical emails would be overlooked when buried in spam and non-critical emails.

Policy Schmolicy

Government agencies make policies for others to follow -- they don't actually use them for themselves.

Technology outdistances policy

Technology moves much faster than policy .... who knew 6-8 years ago that e-mailing would essentially replace snail mail? Now texting and twittering is all the rage. Is there a twitter policy on the books?

I still love Easley's e-mail expert who said "I don't even know how to turn that computer thing on ...." Nothing will ever beat that.

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