Student ListServ Guidelines

Below are guidelines to follow when sending an email via the School's Listserv. Please note the different guidelines for Student-l, Activities-l and Sph-chat.

For complete details and the School's official policy, please visit
School Policy for Listserv Email Messages. 

Student-l:  Information students must know

Includes:

• Business office, student affairs, career center, other school information on courses, garage closings, etc.
• Messages from the Dean or notices that must go to all persons at the school
• Occasional messages about things like SPARC or other notices thought to be of broad interest and important for all students to hear

Does not include:

• Student group events or Student Assembly events other than the prominent schoolwide events (welcome party, gala, tonic, etc). This means no happy hour messages over student-l, the power of procrastination shouldn’t have been a student-l message, the SWEET seminar series, etc. All of these are activities-l items.
• Any event that is already on the public affairs calendar. This includes all grand rounds, the seminar on Pakistan response, etc.  

Of note:

• Almost nothing should ever go out over student-l more than once. 
• The purpose of the listserv is to disseminate important information that students need to know and must read.
• Students are not allowed to unsubscribe from this list-serv. That means that messages on it should be of interest even to students currently studying in China, Spain or elsewhere.  
• The purpose of student-l is not to inform students of events that they might like to attend. It is to inform students of critical information about the School that they have to know. Ask yourself, "is this something students would like to know about, or is this something students must know about."  If it is the latter, then fine. Otherwise – activities-l.

Activities-l:  Information students want to know

Includes:

• Student assembly events that are smaller than our gigantic schoolwide events
• All student group events, seminars, notices, etc.
• Grand rounds notices, seminar notices, and other items that are already on the public affairs calendar but that someone feels like advertising again for a specific reason
• Events from other campuses that are sent to us from those campuses with the intention of inviting JHSPH students

Does not include:

• Items for sale, rent, etc.
• Students organizing study groups, etc.

Of note:

• Nothing should ever be cross-posted on both activities-l and student-l. There’s no need to double post. 100% of students get student-l, so if it’s important enough for that list then you’ve just reached everyone. You’re only going to annoy them by sending it to activities-l as well.
• We should not have the same event being posted every day for a week. Once a week plus the day before or day of as a reminder is plenty.

Who can send messages on Activities-l:

• Authorized JHSPH student groups, sending emails from their studentgroup@jhsph.edu email account;
• Student groups in the process of forming at JHSPH who have expressed this interested to Student Assembly and been granted permission to advertise events on activities-l by emailing sapelect@jhsph.edu;
• Authorized student groups at other Hopkins institutions, who email proof of authorized status to sapelect@jhsph.edu; and
• People authorized by Student Affairs, who have been granted permission by Steve Bazetta emailing sapelect@jhsph.edu.

Types of messages that can be sent on Activities-l:

• Events and activities that all JHSPH students are invited to.
• Events and activities hosted by an authorized student group at JHU.

How to send messages to Activities-l

• Send your message *exactly* as you want it to appear to activities-l@jhsph.edu.
• Do not include attachments or any wording you do not want to be sent with the posted message (including in the subject line).
• Please keep information within the email and attached to the email as concise as possible. Information included in the email should be pertinent to the event/activity.
• A maximum two emails per event per person may be sent; normally one email a week before the event and a second email a day or two before, however due to “listserv fatigue” please do not send more than one email per week about an event.
• Do not send to both activities-l and student-l. 

Sph-chat:  Everything else.