Google to host AUBG alumni e-mail

 

From this year forward, alumni of the American University in Bulgaria will have access to the Alumni Lifetime Email Service. The service is hosted by Google and more than 290 graduating seniors already have access to the service.

The idea surfaced five years ago, but it was approved only in 2008. Testing of the service and possible implementation started by the end of 2008 and the process was finalized when the real implementation started last summer, said Latchezar Filtchev, director of the Office of Communication and Computing (OCC). Students graduating this year will be the first benefiting from this service.

"OCC administers the service and AUBG Alumni Affairs Coordinator Teodora Marcheva coordinates account opening in relation with other AUBG offices like Registrars', " Filtchev said.

"When it was first proposed it was postponed [...] but finally after some years we see something happened and this is the joint result of the SG [Student Government] and the Alumni Association," Petar Svarc, president of the American University in Bulgaria Alumni Association (AAA), said.

"The trigger was the fact that people were graduating and their accounts would be stopped in a few months but they would still be waiting for some e-mails from graduate schools or employers," Svarc added.

The ideal solution would be having the AUBG e-mails forever, but this is not possible because it would cost too much, Svarc said. He added that he proposed switching the whole service of AUBG e-mails to Google service. The service would facilitate the communication among the alumni or the alumni and administration.

As written in the constitution of AAA, the mission of this non-governmental institution is to represent and organise the AUBG alumni body, as well as promote the values of AUBG.

"As you graduate no one ever obliges you to ever come back or think about AUBG, donate or contribute in any kind of way, but for the ones that want to keep the connections [it] is a good way to share experience," Svarc said.

Google mail (Gmail) is a free webmail service provided by Google. It was launched in April 2004, but made accessible to the general public only in February 2007. It has more than 146 million users monthly, more than 7400MB free space per user and offers many services like: Google Chat, e-mail grouping, important e-mail bookmarking, custom keyboard-shortcuts and also document and photo sharing.

"I think this is a very good idea not only because it will be easier for us to keep in touch with each other but it's also going to be easier to get in touch with the faculty and administration. I hope it works," Eni Ceca, graduate of 2009, said.

"If in 10 years time every graduating student had access to this service it would be excellent," Svarc said.