Faculty/Staff General Email Guidelines

Faculty/staff emails are generally released at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. 

Please allow sufficient time for our staff to review and process incoming messages. Email delivery at a specific time is not automatic or guaranteed. Emails may be scheduled for a later time slot, even if they arrive before the cut-off.

Purpose

The purpose of these guidelines is to establish best practices for the use of South Texas College faculty/staff general emails disseminated to the college-wide community. 

Justification

Faculty/staff general emails are important for academic and administrative communications but they are not the only, nor are they always the best tool. These guidelines are intended to:

  • Provide faculty/staff general emails at South Texas College that are accessible, concise, consistent and coordinated.
  • Establish guidelines for the appropriate use of faculty/staff general emails versus other communication tools, e.g., STC News, Events Calendar, Digital Signage, and Social Media.
  • Manage the number of emails sent to faculty and staff
  • Preserve the effectiveness of general email as a communication tool for the college-wide community

Guidelines for Faculty/Staff General Emails

Sender must use a SouthTexasCollege.edu email address or another domain owned by the College. Use of an address or domain not owned by the College will not be accepted.

The body text of the message must include contact information for the person, office or group that sent it. Minimally, the contact information must include a phone number and a valid email address at a domain owned by the College. The PR & Marketing team will not reply to responses sent to faculty/staff general emails.

Message must be clear and concise. The message must include a subject line that is relevant to the message’s content and the body must be clear, concise and no longer than 500 words in length. Additional information, if needed, should be provided via a web link in the text.

Attachments, or accompanying files, must be under 2MB file size.

Message must be web accessible. Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with or access to information by people with disabilities.

The message must be composed in either plain-text or multi-part plain-text/HTML. All information conveyed by the message must be in the text, not embedded in images or other elements that are inaccessible by text-to-speech software. Any images in the message must include “alt-text” describing the image for low-vision readers.

To learn more about accessibility, visit: https://www.southtexascollege.edu/accessibility/index.html.

Messages from student organizations will not be disseminated via faculty/staff general emails.  Additionally, delivery of a General could be denied for any of the following reasons: 

  • Improper logo usage/Unapproved logos
  • Poor grammar
  • Illegal stock images/Unlicensed images
  • If message is not “email ready”. Received messages should not require editing.
  • Overuse or oversaturation from sender from same area or department.

Messages intended to promote college wide events open to faculty, staff, students or the community WILL NOT be forwarded via Faculty/Staff emails and can be submitted to the South Texas College Events Calendar: https://admin.southtexascollege.edu/pr/forms/calendar.html

Faculty/staff general emails expected to be released more than once have to be re-sent to the general email mailbox for each delivery. Repeated emails will not be sent both in the morning and in the afternoon.

Essential Communications

Any message that meets at least one of the following criteria may be classified as essential information. 

  • The message is essential to the mission or operations of the College.
  • The message is essential for student academic performance.
  • The message pertains to an urgent health or safety situation.
  • The message is required by law. 

South Texas College faculty and staff have identified the following types of emails as most relevant, ranked by importance: 

  1. Security alerts
  2. Campus closings and other college operations
  3. Notices from Human Resources
  4. Opportunities from Office of Professional & Organizational Development
  5. Service notifications from Technology Resources
  6. Notices from Business Office
  7. Admissions, Enrollment & Financial Aid
  8. Wellness information, such as flu shots and health benefits

Contacts for More Information

To submit an email message to the faculty/staff general e-mail mailbox, send “e-mail ready” message to: general@southtexascollege.edu 

Generals are currently released by the Public Relations and Marketing staff:

Public Relations and Marketing
956-872-8302

 

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