Almost all academic institutions now give students e-mail accounts. UNCC uses Exchange, CPCC used GMail, NCSU and UNC use some undisclosed email server and Gaston College uses Novell’s NW Mail. All of the institutions keep email accounts active for multiple semesters, or at least retain email in the boxes, even if the accounts aren’t active. Gaston College is the one exception. At the end of every semester the email accounts are disabled and all email is removed from them. I am irritated by this behavior. Gaston College seems to put a lower value on information retention than the other schools. I believe this is related to the fact that Gaston College has a lack of information technology resources. In the absence of these resources I have to wonder why they have not adopted Google Apps or a similar service that would meet all of the needs of the students as well as the faculty. At present, there is no method for changing the email password without going on campus and logging in to a Novell system. Its a bit of a pain for such a simple security procedure.