OUR VIEW: Utah State Today should be a choice

Starting this year, every student automatically receives Utah State Today, the university’s administration newsletter, in their Webmail accounts. Students do not have a choice about whether or not they want a subscription – it is automatically sent to them.

There is an option to unsubscribe, however, for the public relations and marketing department to assume every student will find this useful and not a “plug” for the university is a bit presumptuous.

Students are forced to use Webmail accounts for day-to-day functioning at USU, therefore what goes into the accounts should be left to the students personal choice. An e-mail account is full of personal information and the option to be subscribed to a newsletter should be left up to the student – not the PR department.

Understandably, the PR department does not view this as spamming, but to what regard can they be left to make that distinction? Isn’t it up to the students to choose what they want to receive?

Granted, there is an option to unsubscribe from the newsletter when it is opened. However, there was no warning e-mail sent to students explaining what the PR and marketing department was sending and why it would be useful.

Ethically, the PR and marketing department has over-stepped its bounds. Not only is it wrong to assume a piece of information sent by upper administration will be useful and valued by students, but a sign-up subscription should have been sent asking for student participation.

This is not to say Utah State Today does not offer valuable information from the administration’s point of view – but that should be the choice of the students to define what is and what isn’t valuable information.