Starting this fall, faculty will see some important changes with major and minor email aliases (the lists used to send emails to groups of students within a major and/or minor). Previously these were coordinated through ITSS. However, at the end of Spring 2011, ITSS ended their involvement with creating or updating major/minor alias lists and assisted in moving this functionality in to the Advisor Connect email system. If you have a need for specialty lists (i.e., dept faculty), ITSS will still handle creating these lists for you.
Keep in mind that access needs to be set up in order to send messages to major(s) and/or minor(s). For many of you this has already been done. There are 2 types of access: admin (ability to grant other faculty and staff access to send emails to the students within program(s)) and normal (ability to just send emails to students within program(s)).
Once you log into the system, you will need to opt in to send email and add your signature (advisors only can also opt in to receive pre-written calender specific messages to forward to advisees). If you attempt to log in and receive a message that you do not have access, you will need to get access set up before you can send emails to the list.
Log in by clicking on Advisor Connect or go to UMD homepage - OneStop For - Faculty/Staff link - Tools Heading - Advisor Connect link.
- To set up Admin access, contact Lisa Rigoni Reeves (7701, lreeves@d.umn.edu)
- To set up Normal access, contact your department administrative assistant or your Student Affairs Representative (CLA - Pam Spencer (8536; pspencer@umn.edu), LSBE - Tracey Bolen (7520; tbolen@d.umn.edu), SCSE - Janny Walker (7816; jwalker@d.umn.edu), SFA - Stacy Crawford (8436; scrawfo2@d.umn.edu) or CEHSP - Susan Darge (7694; sdarge@d.umn.edu).
- If you need any additional set-up help, contact Lisa Rigoni Reeves
Once you have access to Advisor Connect, whenever you are ready to send an email all you have to do is:
- log in
- create the message
- click the major(s) and/or minor(s) you want to send the message [1]
- click send
You have the ability to attach documents and cc others on the message. You will receive a copy of the email you sent. The email copy will include the names of all of students who received the message. Students get a personalized email message addressed to their name.
[1] The major/minor lists are updated nightly M-F to ensure the most up-to-date student information we can.
For additional help on using Advisor Connect, please go to https://moodle.umn.edu/course/view.php?id=9784. Advisor Connect is listed as the 2nd module. If you have any issues or trouble after you have reviewed the information, please do not hesitate to contact Lisa Rigoni Reeves.

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