12/23/96 IVY-COVERED E-MAIL ADDRESSES

IVY-COVERED E-MAIL ADDRESSES

FORGET THOSE COLLEGE stickers for car windows. Now, alumni offices are offering grads E-mail addresses to bind them to alma mater, e.g., JaneDoe@alumni.prince ton.edu. These tags are surprisingly popular among elderly alums--who have more time for Net surfing--yet the biggest users are recent grads. Peripatetic twenty- somethings find a permanent E-mail home convenient.
Alumni E-mail began earlier this year at several schools, including Princeton and Stanford, while Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have set up pilot programs. Stanford's plan is among the biggest, with 3,800 users. These plans, which include mailboxes and accompanying information networks, aren't cost-free. B-school grad and Sun CEO Scott McNealy donated hardware to Stanford, and the university provided a $35,000 startup grant. Princeton grads must pay for an address; one year costs $20. Some places, such as Stanford and MIT, offer them for free.
To date, no one is making direct alumni fund-raising pitches via E-mail (graduates ponied up $12.7 billion nationally in the 1994-95 school year). But fund-raisers expect the subtle cyberlink forged with Old Ivy to pay off in giving campaigns.
EDITED BY LARRY LIGHT
By Susan Jackson