The recent decision to block access to personal email and the entire Google Drive suite has hindered students' ability to complete research and schoolwork.

On Thursday October 29, Wake Forest School of Medicine students received an email stating that access to personal email has been revoked on all WFBH devices in response to a cyber security threat against patient data. However, most students in the research enterprise have no patient contact or access to patient data. Yet, this ban has been pushed to our research laptops.

A poll of students has revealed that the inability to access personal email has affected students in the following ways:

- Biomedical Engineering students use a Virginia Tech email hosted by Gmail, access to which has been revoked.

-Google Drive access has been blocked as of November 14 2020. This prevents access to students' work including but not limited to: research data, manuscripts, dissertation drafts, conference presentations, and lab notebooks.

-Many extracurricular activities are hosted on Google Drive. These documents have been lost with no forewarning, preventing student groups efficiently performing their programmed duties.

-Other School Activities: For example, a recent conference I attended shared resources on Google Drive, which is not accessible on student laptops.

We are asking for this problem to be solved through the creation of a student network that is separate from the medical enterprise. Students in the research enterprise largely do not have access to patient data, and thus should be on a separately hosted network anyway if cyber security is a concern. This network should allow us to access devices including lab equipment and printers. Revoking access to email and Google Drive has hindered our ability to participate in research and professional development opportunities. We are hopeful that a student network will be created that addresses these issues so that students can achieve their fullest potential.

Please feel free to add examples of how the email ban has affected your work in the comments.

Thank you,