BERKELEY, Calif.– UC Berkeley administrative staff shocked hopeless undergraduates this afternoon by walking back their alumni email cancellation. Defending the decision, Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore spoke candidly on the reversal.
“We have heard campus’ complaints loud and clear,” Gilmore began, pausing suspiciously long after ‘loud.’ “Our strategy has shifted, and as many of you had already seen on the leaked Reddit post, we will be graciously allowing graduating students to retain their ‘berkeley.edu’ email addresses. The criticisms of our policy were clear. Many students expressed that their institutional address is the only way their email is read, even though—thanks to cold-emailing from consulting clubs—most ‘berkeley.edu’ addresses are classified as junk mail. Most clearly, we heard the complaints from within our administration. The logistical nightmare was severe. Without dedicated ‘berkeley.edu’ emails, how could we hound graduates for donations?”
Elated Instagram commenters, many of whom had “Cal ‘24” in their bio, commented the following under the DailyCal’s announcement post:
“We are so back,” commented @oskisballs, an account following only @calfessions and @dailycal.
“Perfect – without bCal my life would unravel,” commented 15 different accounts, verbatim.
“Will Berkeley allow me to keep somebody else’s email address? I’m sick of being dickreider@berkeley.edu” asked @RichardReider.
At press time, undergraduates received an email from “Berkeley Big Give” imploring them to donate, and a second from CalCentral reminding them of a tuition-nonpayment hold.