Email is a convenient and effective way of communicating with students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders in the educational community. However, email also poses some risks and challenges for privacy, security, and professionalism. Therefore, it is important to follow some best practices for email use at YHC.
Acceptable Usage of Young Harris College email accounts
Your YHC email account is provided for education-related purposes only. You should use it to communicate with your instructors, classmates, advisors, and other authorized personnel. You should not use it for personal, commercial, or non-educational purposes, such as signing up for social media, online shopping, or newsletters. Doing so may violate YHC policies, expose your account to spam and phishing, and compromise your academic reputation.
Private/Personal email
Your personal email account (Gmail, Yahoo, or personal Microsoft account) is your own private account and you have the right to use it as you wish. However, you should not use it for education-related purposes, such as submitting assignments, requesting feedback, or contacting your instructors. Doing so may create confusion, inconsistency, and may be seen as unprofessional. It may also prevent your emails from reaching the intended recipients, as some institutional email systems may filter or block external emails.
Forwarding email is highly discouraged
Do not forward emails between your Young Harris College and personal accounts. Forwarding emails can lead to message loss, duplicates, and privacy breaches. This practice exposes you to security risks like hacking, malware, and identity theft. Instead, use the provided Email (email.yhc.edu) or mobile app for accessing emails from different devices or locations.
Furthermore, forwarding Your Harris College emails to personal accounts could open up your personal email to a records request, especially in case of a pending legal situation, and may violate restrictions on sensitive data. Likewise, personal email forwarded to your YHC email is subject to all YHC policies.