Lifetime e-mail bad choice

Another e-mail address? Isn’t that just another conduit
for more spam? Does any undergraduate now at UCLA really need or
expect to use a ucla.edu address 20 years from now?

The decision by seniors who voted to make the 2003 Class Gift
lifetime e-mail service for Bruins shows just how boring people can
be.

Rather than pick lifetime e-mail, seniors could have chosen to
contribute to an on-campus pub, a library for UCLA Child Care
Services or the preservation of old books.

E-mail addresses are easy to come by. Schools, employers, ISPs
and Web sites regularly provide free e-mail addresses. Although a
UCLA e-mail address might be prestigious or interesting, it really
isn’t necessary for alumni, and it might cause problems down
the road.

Imagine, for example, what will happen when the last
recognizable version of “Joe Bruin” is taken: jbruin,
jbruin123, j123bruin2737qsvt. Many common names are already taken
““ and that represents just a few years worth of students and
staff.

Imagine how bad the situation will be in 2025. Incoming
first-years will probably be automatically assigned some sort of
obscure 10-digit alpha-numeric code ““ and that’s if
UCLA doesn’t quadruple in size due to Tidal Wave XXII.

Think of the poor Bruin who will apply to UCLA hoping to get the
address “bruin_cutie” only to be assigned the handle
2897327392873.

Ostensibly, the life-long e-mail service will help students keep
in touch after graduation. Realistically, though, if you
didn’t know someone well enough to get one of their cell
phone numbers, you weren’t really friends.

And, by 2005, John Ashcroft will probably have a national
directory “file” on everyone, so it won’t be hard
to track old friends down anyway.

The pub, in contrast, would have been a unique and needed gift.
UCLA sorely needs an on-campus location where people can go after
hours and just kick back ““ with a beer, of course. A
campus pub would provide the perfect atmosphere for Bruins to
relieve stress and get to know one another. Moreover, a pub on
campus might actually be a safer drinking location for students who
live on campus and in Westwood.

Graduate students have also supported a campus pub, saying they
currently have no place to congregate for social events.

And for those worried about keeping contact with long-lost
college friends, the pub would offer a perfect place to reminisce
about old times.

Of course, an e-mail system is not all bad. A UCLA e-mail
address would allow the Alumni Association to more easily inform
graduates of sporting events, social functions and much needed
fundraising drives.

The real problem with the e-mail gift is that students will not
see any benefit from it while they are students ““ it will
only be appreciated by those who have already left the UCLA
campus.

UCLA students should be thankful our seniors are willing to give
the campus a gift, regardless of what it is.

But hopefully next year’s seniors will vote for a tangible
improvement that can be seen and used by all on campus.