PSG petition to adopt Gmail moves forward

By Staff Reports

Publication Date: 11/02/2009

Friday student government representatives and University administrators met to discuss making a switch from Purdue Webmail to Google Apps for Education.

Jamie Steiner, a senior in the College of Agriculture and executive director of strategic planning and assessment for Purdue Student Government, said student representatives met with administrators from ITaP and the office of marketing and media.

“Administrators were satisfied with our goals and expressed interest in moving forward with our proposal,” Steiner wrote in an e-mail.

Steiner said the move to Google Apps would save the University money while benefiting students.

Students would be able to keep their “@purdue.edu” address, their storage space would be upgraded from 1GB to 7.3GB, students with iPhones and Blackberries would have mobile e-mail and there would no longer be maintenance downtimes, Steiner explained.

“When the University looked into outsourcing e-mail to a third-party client in 2007, they found that Purdue could save $283,468 over four years. In this rare instance, the better service costs less.”

Steiner said the next step will be for the administrators to contact Google to see what a contract would entail.

“They are also going to speak to other institutions who have made the switch to see what was contained in their contracts,” Steiner said.

Steiner said student government is encouraging student feedback and support on the Google Apps for Education Facebook group. Other questions or feedback can also be sent to studentgovernment@purdue.edu.