Editorial | E-mail fix can't come soon enough

The School of Arts and Sciences e-mail system didn't even wait for the semester to begin before its first breakdown.

On Sept. 1, the thousands of professors and students who check their e-mail via SAS's Webmail system were unable to access their accounts for more than 8 hours.

SAS mail has been around for more than a decade, but after all that time the school is still working out the kinks.

Fast free e-mail providers are outpacing Penn's e-mail in terms of quality, ease of use, storage space and new features. And that's not just SAS mail. The Wharton School, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Nursing School's e-mail services are still light-years behind most free providers. For proof, just look to the vast number of students who simply forward their school accounts to outside providers.

But don't blame Penn too quickly because administrators are already aware of how far behind the technology curve the University's e-mail systems have become - and they're doing something about it. As The Daily Pennsylvanian reported in April, the University is in negotiations with Gmail, Yahoo and MSN to take over the entire University's e-mail systems.

The school should be commended for such a bold move - which few universities have attempted - but the commendations won't begin to pour out until the negotiations are finalized. And negotiations began in the spring; it's now September. With more crashes plaguing SAS mail and outside providers constantly improving free e-mail services, the school must move quickly to hammer out the details. Of course, such a major switch takes time to arrange, but students are stuck with crashes and stuffed mailboxes in the meantime.

Hopefully, when the school-wide announcement of the switch is made, our e-mail won't be down again. That's one e-mail we don't want to miss.

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