Overview of Faculty and Staff Email

Currently at Bemidji State University the Faculty and Staff use the Novell GroupWise email system. Students use Novell Netmail (formerly known as NIMS). These systems work well together. Faculty can easily find students' addresses in the GroupWise address book. Both systems provide the same WebAccess interface. The main difference is that GroupWise has advanced groupware features like a calendar, shared folder, shared address books, and more which are of value to faculty and staff, but not needed for students. Faculty and staff can use the full featured GroupWise Desktop Client when on campus and the WebAccess version when off campus. For information on the student e-mail system visit the Student Computing web site.

Selecting an Email Client

We strongly recommend that Faculty and Staff use the GroupWise Desktop Client or GroupWise WebAccess. GroupWise is an exceptional communication and collaboration tool with many features that faculty and staff find very useful. Using the WebAccess option, it is now possible for you to manage your account from any Internet-accessible computer with almost any web browser. Another important benefit in these times of stressed budgets is that the GroupWise licenses have already been paid for through MnSCU’s license with Novell. However, if those options aren’t acceptable, we do offer support for Microsoft Entourage for Macintosh. If you choose to use Entourage, please let us know and we will set it up for you. Other email options such as Eudora or Outlook are not supported or have very limited support. That doesn’t mean they won’t work, it just means we are unable to remain knowledgeable on a large variety of options.

Naming Conventions

All Faculty and Staff email addresses are first initial.last name at bemidjistate.edu (e.g. jsmith@bemidjistate.edu . If that address is already taken, the email address would be first and middle initial, last name at bemidjistate.edu (e.g. jasmith@bemidjistate.edu). Your password is set to your BSU tech id, but we urge you to change it to a more secure password after you first successfully log in.

Communicating with Students

All students registered for credit courses at Bemidji State University will automatically have a student email account created for their use. The account is created using first name.last name@st.bemidjistate.edu (e.g. john.smith@st.bemidjistate.edu). We tell students that their “BSU student e-mail account is a primary way faculty and administration communicate with students on important university business, course assignments, changes in computer labs, etc. So be sure to read your e-mail; you are responsible for information communicated to you this way.”

Student Email Policy
It is the policy of Bemidji State University that administrative electronic mail communications between the University and University students shall be done using University assigned electronic mail addresses. It shall be the responsibility of each student to monitor the University assigned electronic mail account for communications from the University.