FROM & REPLY-TO Email Address Changing to username@wwu.edu

Your Email Addresses

Employees have at least two email addresses that deliver to their mailbox.

  • The From/Reply email address for an employee is username@wwu.edu. Most recipients of your messages will not notice this because email messages you send will typically show your display name (e.g., Sally Viking), not your actual email address. 
  • The "friendly" email address for an employee is First.Last@wwu.edu. 

Student email addresses are set up as username@wwu.edu.

Using Email to Communicate with People vs. with Things 

  • Use your username@wwu.edu when you communicate with “things”, like registering a new account for an external or cloud service or when signing into services like Office 365 and Canvas.
  • You may tell people that your email address is First.Last@wwu.edu. It’s often easier for humans to remember and it may look better in print (business cards, publications).
  • You may need to re-subscribe to some services like listserv lists if you are currently subscribed using your First.Last@wwu.edu address, but only if these are lists that you send messages to. You will still receive messages the list sends out, because your First.Last@wwu.edu will continue to receive messages, but when you try to send to that list from username@wwu.edu you may receive a message asking you to subscribe with that address.   To avoid having a duplicate subscription to the list, you may want to contact the list owner to ask them to change the email address on your subscription.
    • You do not need to take this action for any Western listservs because it will be taken care of for you.
    • When you subscribed to the list, you should have received a welcome message with instructions that would include contacting the list owner. In many cases the following will work: Send a message to listname-request@listservername.universityname.edu asking them to update your subscription email address.


Additional Information 

Q. Isn’t First.Last@wwu.edu my email address?
A. As a faculty or staff member, you currently have (at least) two addresses that deliver to your mailbox. 

  • Username@wwu.edu is your actual email address.
  • First.Last@wwu.edu delivers messages to your mailbox but is actually just a human-friendly alias

Q: Didn't First.Last@wwu.edu used to be my email address? Why should my messages go out from username@wwu.edu?
A: The university has adopted many cloud services in recent years, and we provide single sign-on passwords for many cloud services like Canvas and Microsoft 365 using your username@wwu.edu as the way to identify your account. These services expect your account username and email address to be the same, so they do not work well when you send messages from an alias like First.Last@wwu.edu.We also encounter problems when faculty and staff sign-up for free services using their First.Last@wwu.edu, and later we try to offer single-sign-on for that service. This change allows us to establish username@wwu.edu as the standard for sending messages and for signing into cloud services. 

Q: Why do cloud services have a problem with First.Last@wwu.edu?  
A: Most cloud services do not recognize secondary email addresses. They recognize only your actual email address, which is username@wwu.edu. This becomes a problem with services that send email notifications and allow you to respond. The service doesn't recognize you when it receives the reply from your First.Last@wwu.edu address.  

Q: Why not make First.Last@wwu.edu our cloud username, and make username@wwu.edu the secondary alias? 
A: Your actual email address needs to be something that will not change and will never be duplicated by a future employee,  just like your username. The First.Last@wwu.edu address is something we can offer as a more personalized address that is easier for people to remember and that looks nice on business cards. 

Q: Do student employees have a First.Last@wwu.edu address option?
A: Student employees have only username@wwu.edu.