This week I met with the ITS staff of Davidson College. The ITS staff was very informative about Davidson's privacy policy regarding email and internet use. I found out that Davidson has does provide a great deal of privacy to students' emails, however they do have the legal right to access student emails. In the last ten years, I was told that ITS has not had to access any student emails for any reasons except for the exception of being subpoenaed or as a result of an honor council verdict. It seems to tie in with the honor code here at Davidson that students are held to a higher standard and trusted. This results in Davidson's policy of reserving the right to access student emails, yet on the other working to protect their privacy. This leaves me in an interesting position regarding my thesis because it seems that Davidson does not have a need for any email monitoring. If anyone has any ideas for how to refocus my topic that would be greatly appreciated.
