EDITOR’S NOTE: Recently the WSU Retirees Association board was notified that wright.edu retiree and emeritus email accounts would be shut down this fall. In response, we sent the following letter to the president and leadership of the Faculty and Staff Senates, Advancement. Alumni Affairs, Wright State’s Board of Trustees, and the Foundation. If the university’s plan to discontinue hosting retiree email accounts proceeds this fall, the WSU Retirees Association will no longer be able to share university news and promote our social and educational events with many of you through that domain. If you currently receive email from us through a wright.edu email account, please send your new email address to us at wsura@wright.edu as soon as possible. See also: Retirees respond to decision to shut down retiree email accounts
Susan Edwards, Ph.D.
Office of the President
250 University Hall
Wright State University
3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy.
Dayton, OH 45435
Dear President Edwards:
As members of the Board of Directors of the Wright State University Retirees Association (WSURA), we are writing on behalf of our fellow retirees to express our disappointment with the decision by the university to discontinue retiree and emeritus email accounts on November 3, 2025. We respectfully request that you reconsider this decision.
We have noticed large banners on the third floor of the Student Union outside the WSURA office that proclaim “Once a Raider always a Raider.” We assume this sentiment is primarily targeted toward students to demonstrate Wright State’s commitment to being a belonging, caring community. Certainly students, during their time at the university, can build an emotional connection that validates these signs. After all, we do refer to the college or university we attended as our “alma mater” (caring mother).
But surely this sentiment extends beyond students to those who worked for the university for far longer than the tenure of any student. There are retirees who spent most of their adult years at Wright State and developed that emotional bond clearly reflective of alma mater.
During our tenure, we not only helped to develop and maintain the community the banners so proudly claim, many of us continue to feel it deeply. As retirees, many of us remain involved with the university and greatly value the remaining connections to Wright State that are present in our lives. Over the years, retirees have generously donated more than $1.5 million to the Campus Scholarship Campaign. This year, we were pleased to provide Nick Davis Endowed scholarships to five outstanding undergraduates.
We understand that a process is being developed for actively affiliated emeritus faculty to request continued access to their Wright State accounts. However, there are some retired faculty who may not meet the criteria being developed, but who want to continue accessing their accounts so that former students and colleagues can contact them. In many cases, articles published in scholarly journals include their Wright State email addresses as the only means of contacting them. When students seek letters of recommendation from retired faculty, those recommendations carry more weight if they come from a wright.edu email address.
The Retirees Association has about 300 paid members and maintains a mailing list of about 900 living retirees, more than half of whom currently use their wright.edu accounts. WSURA is one of the most active retiree associations at Ohio’s public universities. We regularly use our mailing list to email newsletters filled with university news and to publicize our many events. We are concerned we will lose touch with the majority of the retirees on our list when their email accounts are closed. This will devastate our organization and have a negative impact on our ability to raise funds for the university.
The abrupt decision to discontinue retiree email accounts without discussing alternative measures came as a shock. Is it not possible to grandfather in retirees who gave decades of service to the university and left assured that their email accounts would persist? Many of us have saved important records in our email accounts. At the very least, is there not a way we could continue to have access to our archived emails? We were told that retiree emails pose a security risk. How can we pose a greater security risk than alumni or current students?
Some consider the email address as a small thing, but for retirees it is one of the only, if not the only, connection to WSU remaining for them. Removing that connection is a very real signal that one is no longer a Raider.
Respectfully,
David Garrison, President
Wright State University Retirees Association
WSURA Board of Directors:
Dan Abrahamowicz
Peggy Bott
Barbara Bullock
Judith Engle
David Garrison
Mary Gromosiak
Joyce Howes
Mary Kenton
Katherine Morris
Donna Schlagheck
Carolyn Smith
Robin Suits
Gail Whitaker
Richard Williams
Cc:
Linda Black-Kurek, Chair, WSU Foundation Board of Directors
Jim Denniston, Provost and Vice President, Academic Affairs
Seth Gordon, Chair, Staff Senate
Tom Gunlock, Chair, WSU Board of Trustees
Carol Loranger, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Greg Scharer, Executive Director, Alumni Relations
Bill Shepard, Vice President for Advancement
Michael Stankas, Chief Information Officer
Dawn Wooley, President, Faculty Senate
See also:
