Bates has three different email communications vehicles for moderated content for employees. These are Bates Now, faculty@groups, and staff@groups. Complementing these tools are Bates Today and students@lists for student communications. Two unmoderated email forums exist for members of the community (forsale@groups and factalk@bates).

Below we review the policies for use on each of the three moderated content vehicles:

Bates Now

Bates Now is a daily email which provides an aggregation of campus events and announcements that reduces the volume of emails faculty and staff receive. Bates Now is moderated by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Dean of the Faculty’s office. Posts suitable for inclusion in Bates Now are as follows:

• Events (speakers, programs, performances, and similar) occurring at Bates College for the Bates College Community. 
• Events occurring nearby Bates where the event features a Bates faculty or staff member as a Bates representative, or where the performance pertains to their Bates professional development.
• General Announcements relevant to employees, including retired faculty and staff.

Items not suitable for inclusion on Bates Now include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Announcements of local events of note that do not have a Bates faculty or staff member as a Bates representative, or where the performance does not pertain to their Bates professional development. These events may be advertised on ForSale.
• Announcements for third-party fundraisers. These may be advertised on ForSale. While fundraisers may sometimes have a Bates tie-in, only college-sponsored third-party fundraising will be considered for Bates Now (including the annual Community Campaign and through employee enrichment).
• Political campaign activity and messages that favor or oppose candidates with or without stating their names.

Faculty@Groups.Bates.edu

Faculty@groups is a “Google Group” that enables messages to be sent to the entire faculty. Included in this distribution are emeriti faculty, AAAs, and other faculty support staff. Faculty@groups.bates.edu is moderated by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Dean of the Faculty’s office.

This Google Group will be used for official college Bates messages that relate to faculty matters. These could include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Official messages from the President and college leadership (e.g., announcement of leadership changes, calls for nominations/volunteers for college initiatives, emergency information, employee benefit changes by Human Resources).
• Official messages from the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Dean of the Faculty on faculty-specific matters. These could include announcements regarding faculty curricular initiatives, scholarship and research funding, and shared governance.

Staff@Groups.Bates.edu

Staff@groups is a “Google Group” that enables messages to be sent to the entire staff. Included in this distribution are retirees who have opted-in. Note that certain staff are on both the faculty@groups and staff@groups distribution. When an email is addressed to both groups, recipients on both groups will only receive it once. In general, any email to staff@groups will likely be sent to both staff@groups and faculty@groups, while not every message sent to faculty@groups – grading timelines, course-specific messages, and similar — will be sent to staff@groups. Staff@groups is moderated by the Vice President for Finance and Administration’s office.

This Google Group will be used for official Bates messages that relate to college matters. These could include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Official messages from the President and college leadership (e.g., announcement of leadership changes, calls for nominations/volunteers for college initiatives, emergency information, employee benefit changes by Human Resources).
• Official messages from the Vice President of Finance and Administration related to college processes, timely updates, or similar. These could include notifications regarding such matters as policy changes, open enrollment, and timely campus updates.