Microsoft Office 365 – currently in use by all SUNY New Paltz faculty and staff – will soon replace Hawkmail as the default email system for all New Paltz students.
While these changes will not take effect for current New Paltz students until summer, we want to make sure our community is aware that this transition is coming, and why we are planning to take this action now.
This transition will happen in two stages:
- Beginning in December, the College will stop automatically creating new accounts for students on Hawkmail. All new students who first matriculate or register in December 2020 or later will have their official College email on Office 365.
- Effective June 2021, the College will make Office 365 the default email for all students. All email sent to students from the College will go to Office 365. Mail sent to Hawkmail addresses will be automatically forwarded to their Office 365 accounts.
Read on for more information about how this transition will work, why we are taking this action, and how it will affect New Paltz students, faculty and staff.
What is Office 365?
Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud suite. It includes many tools, including:
- Outlook: Microsoft’s email application which, like Gmail, includes mail, calendars, contacts and a to-do list
- OneDrive: A cloud storage service, equivalent to Google Drive
- OneNote: A notebook tool used to store and organize notes
- Teams: A collaboration tool that combines shared file storage, instant messaging to individuals or members of a group, and web conferencing like WebEx/Zoom
- Office: Both web and installed versions of the traditional Microsoft Office apps (Word, PowerPoint and Excel)
Why are we doing this?
There are many reasons we’re taking this step now, but the biggest are:
- Easier collaboration between students, faculty and staff
- Better security
- More availability
One of the primary benefits of making this change is to get students onto the same email, cloud and collaboration platforms as faculty and staff. There have been a number of complications related to students using Hawkmail/GSuite while their professors use Office 365, particularly in areas where students are involved in studies (such as clinical work) that require email encryption.
With students moving to Office 365, it will also be easier for the College to accommodate requests from faculty and staff to use Microsoft Teams for engaging with students.
Microsoft also works much more efficiently than Hawkmail with Duo, the College’s primary tool for providing multi-factor authentication to secure accounts used by students and employees. And, Microsoft provides additional tools to identify and protect sensitive data that may be stored on the various Office 365 systems (like SharePoint or OneDrive).
Lastly, moving students to Office 365 allows the College to more easily use Microsoft’s cloud computing service, Azure, for authentication for campus services like Blackboard. This will make it possible for them to continue working for students, faculty and staff even if there is a disruption in services on-campus (due to hardware failures, weather, etc.).
How will this change affect students’ email?
Beginning in December, only Office 365 accounts will be created for new students (those who registered or matriculated after November 2020).
One exception to this policy is that new Hawkmail accounts will be created for students enrolled in School of Education courses where course content includes lessons about the GSuite tools (as opposed to courses where those tools are used to facilitate other lessons). The College is making this allowance to accommodate students and faculty focusing on k-12 education, where Google tools are widely used.
Beginning in June 2021, the following changes will occur for all New Paltz students who still have a Hawkmail address (i.e., those who registered or matriculated before November 2020):
- The Hawkmail account for active students (i.e. <username>@hawkmail.newpaltz.edu) will be set to forward all mail to their Office 365 address (<username>@newpaltz.edu)
- The College will offer students the ability to migrate their existing mail from their Hawkmail account to their Office 365 account
We will send reminders that this change is coming throughout the spring 2021 semester. These messages will include information about the various tools available within Office 365.
Students who prefer to continue using Hawkmail instead of Office 365 after June 2021 will be able to do so, by setting up a forward to send mail from the Office 365 account back to their Hawkmail account. We will provide instructions to accommodate students in this situation.
How will this impact Alumni?
Unlike Hawkmail, Office 365 accounts will only be active for approximately six months after a student leaves the college (due to graduation, withdrawal, etc.). For example, a student graduating in May 2021, will keep Office 365 until approximately the end of November 2021.
Hawkmail will continue to be the email system for alumni. Students and alumni who already have a Hawkmail account will be able to keep it as long as they login to the account at least once a year. Any Hawkmail account that is not logged into for more than a year may be suspended and eventually deleted.
Alumni (and students who have already filed for graduation) who don’t have Hawkmail but want an alumni email account will be able to request one via my.newpaltz.edu.
Can students try Office 365 now?
Yes! All active students already have accounts on Office 365.
You can access your account by going to portal.office.com. To login, use the same username that you use for Blackboard or my.newpaltz.edu, but with @newpaltz.edu (instead of @hawkmail.newpaltz.edu). Your password is the same.
For example, if your email on Hawkmail is smith33@hawkmail.newpaltz.edu, you would use smith33@newpaltz.edu when you login to Office 365.
While students have the ability to familiarize themselves with Office 365 now, they do not need to check this account until June 2021, as all mail will be forwarded to students’ Hawkmail accounts until that date.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can find more information about this change to students email at our FAQ page, which will be updated throughout the semester as new questions come through.
