Wesleyan Fights Spam With Spam! (Ivy Peg Below, Promise)
College students can expect to get e-mails from university administrators -- that's why God invented the Gmail "report spam" button. But what administration spams students at another school? Brown's, apparently.
Wesleyan students have reportedly been inundated with e-mails from Brown asking them to fill out surveys on academic advising. (It's pasted after the jump.) "Not altogether bad, sort of interesting, in any case they mean well," one Wesleyan student told us. "But anyways, the problem is that they don't...stop...e-mailing you, even if you ask to be taken off their mailing list, no matter if you contact the person at brown or the wes[leyan] originator."
Why and how Brown officials got access to Wesleyan listservs, we have no idea. But some students are fighting back. Fun group blog Wesleying posted one student's blueprint for rebellion:
I already asked to be taken off the list politely, but today I just got a second email. So I have sent their point of contact, a class dean who's email address is robert_shaw@brown.edu a 4MB image of the ct bylaws guiding unsolicited email (along with the link). I encourage all of you to do the same (or send other large attachments to him, like setup files, long poetry, your thesis).
A Wesleyan dean has apparently called the student, asking him to stop exhorting other students to spam Brown. On the off chance that he has stopped, we'll gladly take up the cause. Brown's IT guys can pretty easily block that four-megabyte attachment, so let's kill Mr. Shaw's inbox with a thousand cuts, shall we? Treat him to your more elaborate theses, complex Excel models, high-res art portfolios, etc., at robert_shaw@brown.edu. Help end mass administrative e-mails for all time.
Dear [student],
A few days ago you were contacted regarding a study of student experiences with
advising at "open curriculum" colleges. If you've already completed this survey,
thanks for your help -- we value your thoughts. If you haven't yet completed it,
your input would be most appreciated:
http://www.brown.edu/college/teaglesurveyAll data collected from this survey will be kept confidential. Your name and other
identifying information will not be included with your survey responses. Your
participation in this survey is voluntary; you may decline to participate without
penalty. If you decide to participate, you may withdraw from the survey at any
time. If you have questions about the study or the procedures, you may contact Dean
Robert Shaw at Brown University, 401-863-2315, Robert_shaw@brown.edu.Thank you in advance for your comments about your experiences with advising at
Wesleyan. Your comments and those of your fellow students will be invaluable as we
consider how to improve undergraduate advising.
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November 21st, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Email bombing? Really? 1995 wants their internet tactics back…
November 22nd, 2006 at 4:26 am
J goes to Cornell, they don’t even have computers.
November 22nd, 2006 at 4:42 am
Change the design already, think of the hundreds of comments you’ll get when you FIX IT!
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:34 pm
I’m flattered to be referenced in IvyGate, but I was hoping that my first mention would be for something more substantial than an alleged spamming of students at other universities. The survey in question is a joint project of 8 colleges, including Brown and Wesleyan. The project, funded by the Teagle Foundation, is an examination of the values and practices of the “Open Curriculum”, in which students have significant freedom to design their own academic programs. In interviews with alumni of our institutions last year, the importance of good advising was a central theme, so this year the focus of the project is on improving advising at our schools. Emails to invite students to participate in a survey of advising are sent out by each school to students at that school. My name is included in all the emails to conform to requirements of the Institutional Review Board (human subjects protection board) that participants have a contact to whom they can address questions about the project. It may have seemed to students at Wesleyan that the emails were sent by me, but they were sent by Wesleyan personnel from Wesleyan. Three Wesleyan students did write to me about the project and I replied to each of them. Students from the various schools who participated in the survey have made extensive comments about their experiences with advising and suggestions for change. These will be discussed at length at each school next semester. We have also set up a message board on which students at these 8 schools may post their observations about their experiences with advising. I invite any interested students to visit this message board whether or not they participated in the survey:
http://messageboard.chatuniversity.com/brownacademicadvising/
– Dean Shaw
November 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 am
As the original poster referenced in this article, I too, am flattered for the publicity. Please bear in mind that this stunt was never intended to do serious damage — it simply was intended to alert the survey administrators of a serious failure of judgment when they decided to how to recruit the student bodies.
This survey is for a noble cause (to better academic advising). But my affiliation with Wesleyan University does not give every academic institution associated with Wes free reign to clog everybody’s mailbox with chatter.
I consider sending unsolicited mail highly immoral, whether it qualifies as spam or not.
– Isaac Levy
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
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