Alumni will lose Email Access; IT Clarifies Confusion

Ohio Northern University will no longer provide email-for-life services to its alumni. Class of 2024 graduates will lose access to their ONU accounts on August 2, 2025, while other alumni will lose access on February 3, 2025.

Alumni from the class of 2024 recently received an email from the Office of Information Technology informing them that “[a]s a 2024 graduate, your ONU email access will end on August 2, 2025.”

The email says the decision to terminate alumni email accounts was “prompted by cybersecurity concerns, increased costs, and declining usage.” The email claims that several other universities have already taken the same step. Alumni who wish to keep their materials will have to migrate them to a personal email address.

However, an attached “FAQ” document provided a different date: February 3, 2025 — six months earlier. One ‘24 alumnus provided Northern Review with a copy of an email exchange they had with ONU’s IT Help Desk, which indicates that February 3 is the correct date.

Jeff Rieman, Chief Information Officer at Ohio Northern, clarified the issue to Northern Review. He says, “There are two populations that we are working with.” He confirms that “the bulk of the alumni” will lose their access on February 3. Graduates from the class of 2024 will be later, as indicated by the email. Rieman says that graduate account removal “will always be approximately 400 days after their graduation date so they have time to finish job searches and move their services to a personal account.”

Account discontinuation will prevent alumni from sending and receiving emails from an onu.edu domain email account. It will also remove access to all Google Docs and other Drive files affiliated with the alumnus’ onu.edu account. As indicated by Ohio Northern’s FAQ sheet, documents can be preserved via Google’s Takeout feature.

Another complication for alumni will be via social media accounts they may have set up with their onu.edu email. Most platforms allow one to change their email address through settings. Lastly, contacts for banking or healthcare information will be lost on onu.edu accounts, and alumni can switch to a personal email account by contacting their providers.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated (11/24/24) to correct misprinted 2024 dates in the lede, which had already passed at the time of publishing, to read 2025.