Email Glitch Disrupts Communication Between Professors And Students

A technological hiccup that affected Miami Dade College student email accounts for about a week in late January sparked confusion among students and faculty.

During the disruption, students were able to send emails but they did not receive emails from their professors. College officials said the issue was identified on Jan. 22 and resolved five days later, but some students told The Reporter they noticed the issue a few days before that. 

It’s unclear if all MDC student accounts were affected. There are about 72,000 student mailboxes, according to Robert A. Parrondo, the vice president of information technology and chief information officer at Miami Dade College. 

“We received reports of students being unable to receive emails from MDC staff,” Parrondo said. “We immediately contacted Google and Microsoft for support to resolve the problem and identified an isolated glitch. The issue was corrected on January 27th, restoring normal email flow between MDC personnel (Microsoft) and students (Gmail).” 

The college did not notify students, professors or staff of the issue. In previous situations like hurricanes or college closures, the school has announced information through its social media platforms, on their website, via phone calls and emails. Professors have also forwarded information to students through Canvas. 

“I can understand the college having technical difficulties, because you know, we are in a big area and things happen, but it is [the college’s responsibility] to contact students about that,” said Alexa Frederick, an 18-year-old Honors College student at Kendall Campus. “We shouldn’t have to figure it out on our own.” 

Frederick was one of the students who was affected by the disruption in email service. While taking an MDC Live course, she emailed her professor on Jan. 26 to get an honors contract signed, a requirement for students in her program who enroll in non-Honors College courses.    

“I had no other way of reaching him [besides email]. So, it took me like two weeks to work something out with him, and when he finally responded I ended up getting rejected for the contract,” Frederick said. “I wasted so much time when I could have just known from the get-go that the email wasn’t working.” 

Alejandro Mercado, a 20-year-old international student majoring in business administration, shared a similar experience. Unsure of how to complete an assignment for his American Government class, he reached out to his professor. 

“Before [the week of the outage], I was able to communicate with the professor successfully through email, so I was confident I would get an answer eventually,” Mercado said. “I didn’t get any response from the professor till the [due] date, so I kind of [figured] it out by myself and just [did] it by how I think it was [supposed to be done].”

Nelson Sotomayor, an assistant economics professor, was also affected by the situation. He was confused when his emails to students went unanswered. 

“I didn’t even realize it was an issue until a student brought it up. […],” Sotomayor said. “At first, I thought [they’re] just ignoring me. But then it happened several times, so I figured something must be wrong.”  

Parrondo urged students to contact the College’s IT Helpdesk at (305) 237-2505 or at helpdesk@mdc.edu if problems arise. 

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