The LionMail Pride is complete

Many of Columbia’s grad students have now joined the undergrads on LionMail. As of about two weeks ago, we’re all one big, happy LionMail family. Here is the press release from CUIT:

CUIT is pleased to announce that many graduate schools are now using LionMail, Columbia’s Google-powered email and calendar solution.

On January 15, over 12,000 members of the Columbia community began using LionMail. This included graduate students from Continuing Education, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Journalism, along with adjunct faculty from Continuing Education and staff from the School of the Arts.

“The Journalism School welcomes the opportunity to use LionMail, because the convenience and security it offers will enhance the user experience. There has been great anticipation for the implementation of this system,” said Nicholas Lemann, Dean, and Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism. The first phase of the transition includes students, while faculty and staff will be added at a later date.

“We are pleased to be able to offer GSAS students the opportunity to use LionMail, which will constitute a significant improvement over both CubMail and the publicly available version of Gmail,” added Carlos J. Alonso, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Vice President for Graduate Education.

The Office of Alumni and Development has also made the move! In early December 2012, 226 people were migrated to LionMail.

“The transition to LionMail went very smoothly. CUIT and their consultants from Appirio did a great job preparing us for the move, executing the migration of millions of emails from our existing system and providing support after the switch. Overall, the response from our users has been quite positive,” said David J. Park, Senior Director for Strategic Technology Initiatives for the Office of Alumni and Development.

In November 2012, approximately 4,100 graduate students in the School of the Arts, SEAS and Architecture moved to LionMail. In addition, 600 faculty and staff in Architecture began using the new email platform.

One of students’ favorite features of the new system is the integrated access to the University directory, providing them University email addresses right in the address bar. Another highlight is being able to import students’ CourseWorks calendars into LionMail.

During the summer of 2012, we completed the migration to LionMail for all undergraduate students in Columbia College, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of General Studies. The migration of 6,842 current students, as well as the opening of approximately 2,100 accounts for new students, was completed as of July 31, 2012, well ahead of our projected goal of December 2012.

CUIT continues to work with deans of individual schools to determine the timing of a possible move to LionMail. We anticipate more schools will be moving to LionMail throughout the year.

If you have questions, contact Communications Directors Eleanor Templeton, eet2101@columbia.edu, and Jessica Kalay, jk3612@columbia.edu.

Pride Rock via Shutterstock