E-mail Guidelines and Tags for Faculty and Staff Use

Why do we need E-mail Guidelines and Tags?

The University of Southern Mississippi is a public institution touching many constituencies daily.

Our image, behavior and the materials we disseminate reflect upon the university directly.

From the customer/student/general public perspective, Southern Miss is one institution that stands for the principles we profess in our vision, mission and values statements. Principally:

Leadership in Educating Students           Creating Healthier Communities
Educating the Whole Student                 Economic Development
Academic Excellence                            Creating Global Communities
Conducting Innovative Research              Enriching the Cultural Environment

We should portray these principles with the following characteristics:

Professionalism                      Excellence                  Dignity
Honor                                     Respect                     Distinguished service
Pride                                      Enthusiasm                Enlightenment

We have been instilled with the public trust.

Not only because we are funded through tax dollars, but the people of this state and region expect the highest degree of integrity and purpose from our university. We are expected to deliver on this promise. Therefore, it is vital the manner in which we represent ourselves in word, voice, action and within all media.

E-mail is a critical channel.

E-mail is a standard form of today’s business communication. Also to note, e-mail is an easy channel to “turn off” – filters take away the “noise” and e-mail is easily deleted.

For these and many other reasons, we as faculty and staff must understand that our e-mails also represent us as a singular communication piece. We are not there as our e-mails arrive or are opened to explain “what we really meant” or how we really wanted to be perceived. E-mails must be able to stand alone and represent not only the sender but, in fact, the entire institution.

Other factors are important with e-mail communications:

• Consistency –  Our constituents need to feel like they are talking to the same organization with a common purpose.
• Effectiveness – Readability studies have shown that specific fonts, colors and other tactics work best in the e-mail format to improve open rates and overall success of communication.
• Professionalism – Business communications have standard expectations for professionalism, correctness and message when representing an organization.

Therefore, these simple yet effective business guidelines were created to assist and enhance communication from our faculty and staff to the outside constituencies to whom we communicate each day via this critically important channel, e-mail.

Click here for the Email guidelines  or here for Email Tags (pdf document).