IT Response to Death of a Student, Faculty or Staff Member

When the Office of Information Technology is informed of the death of an active student, faculty, or staff member, they will adhere to the following procedures as they relate to Bronco NetID, Office 365, and voice mail deactivation.

See also removal of authenticated services for additional actions. 

Death of a student IT procedure

• The office of the Associate Vice President of Student Affairs shall inform OIT of the death of an active student. See Providing Notification below.
• Upon notification, the security team in information technology shall create an auto-reply message in the email account and ensure that no new email is accepted.
• The standard message is: “This is an automated message. This account is no longer available." This message will remain active for approximately 30 days.
• IT will also disable login access to the account.
• Supervised review of a student mail account by a parent, guardian or spouse must be authorized by general counsel and the CIO and will only be granted for circumstances of financial arrangements or notifications that might have been sent to the students wmich.edu email account. This request will be made by the OIT security office on behalf of the requestor.

Death of a faculty member IT procedure

• Notification of the death of an active faculty member shall come from the faculty member's dean or chair person to OIT. See Providing Notification below.
• Upon notification by the department dean or chair, the security team in information technology shall create an auto-reply message in the email account and ensure that no new email is accepted.
• They may choose the standard message: “This is an automated message. This account is no longer available.", or have an additional message appended to the standard message, referencing another email address to contact instead. This message will remain active for approximately 30 days.
• IT will also disable login access to the account.
• The phone service representatives will change the voice mail password to allow departmental access, if requested.
• Supervised review of a faculty members mail account by the department or spouse must be authorized by general counsel and the CIO. Department access will only be granted for circumstances of university business. Spousal account review may be granted for personal business arrangements that may have been sent to the faculty members wmich.edu email account. This request will be made by the OIT security office on behalf of the requestor.

Death of a staff member IT procedure

• Notification of the death of an active staff member shall come from the staff member's supervisor to OIT. See Providing Notification below.
• Upon notification by the staff member's supervisor, the security team in information technology shall create an auto-reply message in the email account and ensure that no new email is accepted.
• They may choose the standard message: “This is an automated message. This account is no longer available.", or have an additional message appended to the standard message, referencing another email address to contact instead. This message will remain active for approximately 30 days.
• IT will also disable login access to the account.
• The phone service representatives will change the voice mail password to allow supervisor access, if requested.
• Supervised review of a staff members mail account by the department or spouse must be authorized by general counsel and the CIO. Department access will only be granted for circumstances of university business. Spousal account review may be granted for personal business arrangements that may have been sent to the staff members wmich.edu email account. This request will be made by the OIT security office on behalf of the requestor.

PROVIDING NOTIFICATION

Notifications will be submitted to the goWMU case management system where the requestor will fill out the Notification of Death request form. When completing this request, a department chair or supervisor will need to provide a list of all enterprise services to which the faulty or staff member has been granted access.

Notification of Death Request (You will be taken to goWMU where a Bronco NetID and password is required for authentication.)

Document action

Revisions approved by Campus Security Committee: Oct. 2019
Approved by President's Senior Leadership: Nov. 2014