Dear President Wilson,

As Wayne State School of Medicine students, we are petitioning the University to continue to provide us maintenance and access to the med.wayne.edu subdomain for our email communications. We rely on the ability to send and receive email through the Medical School subdomain for our professional development and our success during and after our time as students at the University. We affirm that correspondence using a “@med.wayne.edu” email address is essential to our future careers.

As the largest single campus medical school in the United States, Wayne State University School of Medicine has earned a well-deserved reputation for educating and developing students with strong professional skills. Our subdomain represents a fundamental element of the school’s brand, and allows us to be given the credibility that we have worked hard to achieve as candidates for a medical degree. Specifically, when communicating with externships, residency programs, potential future colleagues and research collaborators, we rely on the subdomain as a means of verifying our enrollment.

This issue goes beyond the manner in which our communications are perceived. In many cases, a subdomain specific to the Medical School is a requirement for validating our participation in professional networking organizations and societies. Applying to programs and organizations not directly affiliated with Wayne State University will mean additional requirements, most commonly necessitating a letter from the Dean. In some cases, this may render us ineligible for certain registrations, particularly those using more advanced, systems-based data validation to restrict applications to those coming from a known medical school email address.

Similar subdomains are recognized nationwide as a standard trait of medical degree candidates. Medical Schools across the country use these to distinguish their medical students, including Harvard, Duke, and the University of Pittsburgh medical schools. We want to be afforded the same level of recognition as our peers and future colleagues enjoy, as we see our subdomain as a professional standard.

We view the “@med.wayne.edu” subdomain as an inherent part of our identity as students of the Medical School. We have worked diligently for many years to reach this point in our careers, and are proud to be members of this community. We request that the administration support our careers both as medical students and future medical professionals, by continuing to allow us the ability to send and receive email communications through the med.wayne.edu subdomain.

Signed,