As of this fall, Francis Marion University has partnered with Google to make several upgrades and changes to Swampfox student e-mail.

One of the major changes to take place is making every student’s Swampfox e-mail account into their primary e-mail account.

When FMU first partnered with Google in 2008, the idea was to have a conventional e-mail system.

Even with an e-mail system already set up, e-mail accounts were not required, and FMU students were able to keep their own accounts.

In the spring of 2009, the students’ Gmail account became the official e-mail system, although it was not enforced.

However, the Swampfox e-mail address was on every students’ account and could not be removed by the student when changing personal information online.

After an immense amount of internal promotion through fliers in the spring of 2011, FMU finally made the Swampfox e-mail account a requirement for students as of July 1 this year.

Beginning this fall, the student’s Swampfox address will be given to professors alongside the student’s name on official roll sheets.

John Dixon, chief information officer, finds the changes to be useful.

“This is a good idea, because e-mails weren’t always valid or current,” Dixon said.

By enforcing the Swampfox e-mail account, faculty is guaranteed to have one valid way of reaching students.

As of right now, students can forward their mail from their Swampfox account to another personal account, but it must be a valid e-mail address.

Another is the increase in storage space. Students will now have 25 GB of storage versus the 6 GB they had before.