Published 2006-12-05T00:00:00Z”/>

University e-mail hard to find among spamThe Wildcat Mail system is once again under siege by spammers. E-mails with nondescript subjects such as “Katie wrote” and “fwd: Ball” are invading the campus system more and more every day.

Jerry Ringel, director of computing and user support services, told The Orion that the university spent $15,000 on new e-mail filtering upgrades in November.

That’s $15,000 down the drain.

According to a Chico State executive memorandum, the university “considers e-mail an official method of communication with students.” It goes on to say that “failure to check e-mail, forwarding errors, undeliverable addresses, mailbox full, spam blockers, etc., are not acceptable reasons for missing official University communications.”

Is a shoddy system that lets in tons of spam an acceptable reason for not getting those messages, or is it just an unfortunate reality?

Rather than flinging money at problems, the university should look at open-source options or another way to send announcements.

Open-source programs such as Spamato use a series of filters to eliminate spam for free. The source code that makes up the application is open for anyone to add his two cents to make the software more effective. In the case of Spamato, this makes the spam-blocking program more nimble than what the university uses now.

Another solution is to forget about using Wildcat Mail for important announcements. Instead, the university can use a special announcement section on the Portal for students to read.

As it stands now, students will be buried so deep in spam, they won’t be able to find what the university wants to tell them.

Unisex bathrooms for disabled need workKudos to the university for installing a unisex bathroom in Kendall Hall that is accessible to disabled people. But in the words of first-year student Briana Beaver, “Nice try, but it needs work.”

While it may be fresh and shiny, the new bathroom is short on space. The door is only a few feet from the toilet, and while it may lock, it’s heavy. If the door is too heavy for a person in a wheelchair to open, the toilet inside is useless.

Now, these bathrooms are in Kendall, Trinity and Ayres halls and the Aymer J. Hamilton Building. Good luck to disabled students in need of a similar bathroom near Tehama or Butte halls on the west edge of campus. The first three buildings are all in a row in the central campus, while Hamilton is past Bidwell Mansion.

While these bathrooms and the small improvements made to the library bathrooms last year may be steps in the right direction, they’re baby steps compared with what could be happening. It’s a good start, but the job isn’t close to being finished.

Four university buildings have bathrooms for disabled people. What about the rest of campus?