DeKALB | Organizations who want to publicize events to as many people as possible have a resource they may not know about.

EASY stands for E-mail Announcement Service for You. It is a $94,000 mass e-mail system to which everyone at NIU is auto-subscribed and can use.

Although ITS developed the system and provides support, NIU Public Affairs is responsible for much of it. Public Affairs inherited the program because they handle the NIU calendar, said Melanie Magara, assistant vice president of public affairs.

In spring 2005 the SA gave $34,000 to the e-mail announcement system, in addition to an expenditure of $20,000 from the ITS budget. Nolan Davis, a former SA member who spearheaded the program, said the rest of the funds came from the Department of Finance and Facilities’ contribution of $30,000, $5,000 from the Convocation Center and $5,000 from the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

While some may think a mass e-mail system would be cheap, the EASY system, unlike spam, which is inexpensive, costs more to develop, said Davis, who is also assistant director of Neptune Hall. $50,000 of the project was spent on developing the new software and $19,500 on new hardware. Though the program is designed to avoid spam, Magara says most groups who use the system simply choose to send e-mail to everyone.

The plan was originally intended to target specific groups of people on campus to focus on who is getting the e-mail, Magara said. For example, if one group only wanted juniors in engineering with a 3.0 GPA to receive the e-mail, the system would help accomplish that. This wasn’t all possible because a lot of student information, especially GPA, is restricted by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Students are auto-subscribed to the system; Magara also said they wanted the program to have the option for students to unsubscribe.

SA vice president Michael Johns announced to the senate Oct. 8 that he would like to publicize the EASY e-mail system. He said the system is underused and is a great asset. The SA originally approved $4,000 of their portion to go toward advertising the system. Magara agreed the system is underused and underpromoted.

“If students are throwing events on campus, why not use the tools available?” Johns said. “It’s like using the Rec [center]. If you are paying for it with student fees, it makes no sense why you wouldn’t use it.”