Mass Mailings (Bulk E-Mail)

The University of Cincinnati recognizes mass e-mail as an important medium for facilitating official communication, particularly with UC students. Please reserve the use of mass mailings to important university notices. Messages to all students, or to a cross-section of students university-wide, must be approved by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs.

Per the university's Mass Communication Policy, messages requesting approval should fall within one of the following stated categories:

• Crisis or emergency or both
• Changes to policies or standard operating procedures or both
• Official UC communications (e.g., registration information, deadlines for students)
• Official solicitations (e.g., nominations for official UC awards, grants, campaigns)

To initiate the approval process, please see Mass Mailings to UC Students.

UC recognizes the need for users to send mass communiqués targeting various user groups, be they faculty, staff, or students. Any message sent to 1,000 or more recipients must be approved by UCit E-Mail Services. This is required to insure that the production e-mail systems are not adversely affected during such mass mailings.

To help facilitate the distribution of large bulk e-mails, the university provides two messaging services.

The Mass Mailing service (described above) can be used for ad hoc bulk mailings (not just to students). A Mass Mailing is initiated by the user and once approved and confirmed is released by UCit E-Mail Services. Typically, these are one-time mailings.

For a bulk e-mailing that does not target the student population, please send e-mail to Technician@uc.edu. Your message should contain the text, the from (valid e-mail account) address, and a list of intended recipients. Bulk e-mail requests should be related to UC business and requested at least seven business days in advance.

The second service is the UC LISTSERV. It is useful when more than one mailing will be required. LISTSERV has built-in throttling to insure that the university e-mail systems are not overwhelmed by the sending of any mass communiqué. Mailings can be authorized by the owners of the lists, so no pre-approval by UCit E-Mail Services is required once the list is established.