Read your email, stay informed

Email is an effective—and perhaps the most important—way to share information widely and quickly. As an official means for communication within Fort Lewis College, it is expected that students and employees utilize their official email accounts and they read emails in a timely fashion, especially since many communications are time-sensitive.

 

FLC email communications

As useful and critical as email is to being a Skyhawk, we know that email fatigue is very real. At the Marketing & Communications office, we improve our users' experience of official FLC emails and help our campus stay informed through tailored email newsletters and email list (listserv) management. Continue on to find out how.

FLC newsletters

To combat email fatigue, MarComm strives to organize and customize email communications into three distinct newsletters. This helps the FLC community receive fewer emails that have more value.

FLC email distribution lists

College officials who have information that relates to the general business of FLC are permitted to email students and employees directly via mass distribution lists, or listservs.

Before sending any mass email to the College community, the sender should review the guidelines below to ensure messages are in compliance. To improve the quality of emails sent in mass, these lists are moderated.

  • FLC Insight
  • The Fort Report
  • Bulletin Board
FLC Insight

FLC Insight is a weekly newsletter distributed to current FLC students each Monday during the semester. It consists of messages and announcements from offices across campus. Insight helps address email fatigue by eliminating the need for offices to email students directly and increase consistency in our messaging.

Distributed to

All students

Frequency

Every Monday morning during the semester

Moderation

Lauren Moran, student communications specialist, compiles and edits all contributions for clarity and consistency before sending out the newsletter.

Submissions

Contributions are solicited each week through the FLC Current Student Communications listserv. Content is uploaded to the FLC Current Student Communications SharePoint

Appropriate content may include 

  • Upcoming deadlines (the week of, or the week before a deadline)
  • Important announcements or policy changes (e.g. the dining hall is only open for take-out starting this week)
  • Changes in services provided (e.g. students must now go to Skyhawk Station to make payments in person)
  • Changes to office locations, hours of operation, virtual/in-person offerings, etc. 
  • New programs or services, grand openings, etc. 
  • Upcoming closures, temporary re-locations, etc. 
  • Health and safety announcements

Does not include

  • Event announcements, with rare exceptions
  • Basic information about offices and their services that isn’t tied to a specific, relevant, and timely call to action
  • Repeated information
The Fort Report

The Fort Report is a biweekly newsletter comprised of the latest news clips of current campus happenings and what our alumni are doing out in the world. Some of the articles and videos are produced in-house by the MarComm team while others are pulled from outside media sources from around the country.

Distributed to

Current employees and students, alumni, family members, and friends of FLC

Frequency

Every-other-Wednesday during the semester and occasionally over breaks

Moderation

Lauren Pope, media relations strategist, compiles news clips and coordinates FLC stories for release through The Fort Report.

Submission

Have a story tip? Submit your idea to the team for consideration.

Appropriate content may include

Media mentions related to FLC (e.g. student, faculty, staff, and alumni awards, interviews, published research, job promotions, community service, donations, and grants)

Does not include

  • Event promotion
  • Ideally, all news shared in The Fort Report has an associated hyperlink; the newsletter is not a bulletin, rather a compilation of FLC-related news clips
Bulletin Board

Frequency

Every Friday morning during the semester

Moderation

Lainey Severson, event & conference coordinator, compiles and edits all contributions for clarity and consistency before sending out the newsletter.

Submissions

Contributions are taken directly from our FLC event calendar and Skyhub every Thursday. In order for your event to be in this newsletter, you must submit it to either the event calendar (25Live) or Skyhub.

Appropriate content may include

  • Campus wide events
  • Community events for FLC students
  • Lectures/guest speakers
  • Departmental activities

Does not include

  • Events not open to the public
  • Repeated events
  • Club meetings

FLC-Official

This list is intended for disseminating information among College employees that relates to the general business of the College.

Distributed to

All employees with electronic mail accounts are automatically subscribed to FLC-Official at the beginning of each semester.

Moderation

Lauren Pope moderates and approves messages for release to FLC-Official. Moderation is not guaranteed outside of normal business hours.

Submission

Craft your subject line and email body as though you were addressing employees directly (do not write to the moderator in your message or subject line e.g. “Please send my email to employees”). Type into the To field “FLC-Official” and select the suggested contact that auto-populates. Upon hitting Send, you will receive an auto-generated email from the listserv asking you to confirm the message did originate from you; click the URL to send the message to the moderator for approval.

Appropriate messages are released by the moderator to the list; rejected messages are returned to the poster. Replies to list postings will be routed to the original poster, not to the list and not to the list moderator.

Appropriate content may include

  • Faculty Assembly, Executive Council, or Employee Council minutes and proceedings
  • Academic advising, registration, student billing, financial aid, graduation, or other administrative information of a general nature
  • Road, parking lot, or building closures and safety notices
  • Utility service interruptions
  • Information Technology system changes or downtime
  • Policy changes
  • Faculty/staff enrichment or training opportunities
  • Fort Lewis College Foundation major fundraising events
  • Mandated regulations
  • Campus events that are open to the entire campus community and may also be open to the public. This could include FLC fundraising events.

Does not include

  • Events other than those listed above
  • Personal "classified ads"
  • Promotion of political or religious views
  • Non-FLC fundraising
  • Complaints
FLC-Student-Official

The weekly FLC Insight newsletter is the primary source of content distributed to students through this listserv. This list can be used for emergency communications, with approval from the President’s Office, or in collaboration with MarComm.

Distributed to

All currently and recently enrolled students with electronic mail accounts are automatically subscribed to FLC-Student-Official at the beginning of each semester.

Moderation

Lauren Pope moderates and approves messages for release to FLC-Student-Official. Moderation is not guaranteed outside of normal business hours.

Submissions

FLC Insight is the best way to share information with students via email; please refer to the FLC Insight newsletter section for how to submit content. If you need to email students through the FLC-Student-Official listserv, contact Lauren Pope for approval.

FLC-Faculty & FLC-Staff

These lists are intended for disseminating faculty- or staff-specific information that relates to the general business of the College.

Distributed to

Faculty are automatically subscribed to FLC-Faculty at the beginning of each semester; Staff are automatically subscribed to FLC-Staff at the beginning of each semester

Moderation

Representatives from Faculty Senate and Staff Council moderate and approve messages for release to FLC-Faculty and FLC-Staff. Moderation is not guaranteed outside of normal business hours.

Submissions

Craft your subject line and email body as though you were addressing faculty or staff directly (do not write to the moderator in your message or subject line e.g. “Please send my email to students”). Type into the To field “FLC-Faculty” or “FLC-Staff” and select the suggested contact that auto-populates. Upon hitting Send, you will receive an auto-generated email from the listserv asking you to confirm the message did originate from you; click the URL to send the message to the moderator for approval.

Content

Appropriate messages are released by the moderator to the list. Replies to list postings will be routed to the original poster, not to the list and not to the list moderator.

FLC-Announce & Classifieds

Participation in the FLC-Announce list is voluntary, and therefore there are fewer restrictions on its use.

Distributed to

College employees

Moderation

FLC-Announce is not moderated by MarComm or any other department. Any list subscriber may post messages to the list.

Submissions

Craft your subject line and email body as though you were addressing employees directly. Type into the To field “FLC-Announce” and select the suggested contact that auto-populates. Send. FLC-Announce is distributed daily as a digest of announcements.

Appropriate content

Appropriate content relates to the intellectual, cultural, and professional activity of the College.

If you have announcements, services, job postings, or items for sale unrelated to the professional activity of the College, consider posting an FLC Classifieds ad

Using Emma, our campus email design system

Emma is a software system used by Fort Lewis College to design, organize, and send emails. It is recommended for designing emails to send to campus or to external audiences like alumni, donors, or supporters. Emma gives you access to professional, responsive email designs in a unique subaccount just for your department. 

Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or other programs are not recommended. 

To use Emma, please complete FLC’s Digital Accessibility Training, then email Scott Kadera (kadera_s@fortlewis.edu) to request an Emma account. You’ll be invited to join an Emma training and then be on your way to email success!

If you’ve already been trained in digital accessibility and Emma, you can access your subaccount below using your FLC credentials. 

Login to Emma