For almost 30 years, Harvard University strengthened the bonds with their alumni around the world by offering a lifetime email forwarding address. This enabled alumni to have a single email address they could give out and know that as ISPs, jobs and email carriers changed, the people they gave their post.harvard.edu address to would always be able to reach them.

Recently it was announced that these "lifetime" forwarding addresses are to be shut down. This will not only pose significant administrative headaches for the alumni who use them but it will inevitably result in being locked out of accounts, missing business connections, losing contact with friends. There's simply no way to know every account and acquaintance that you've ever shared your post.harvard address with and once the address is deleted there will in many cases be no way to regain access to the account.

As we sign this it's impossible to think of all the places that an address you've been using for a quarter century has been used. While it's clear from the FAQ that there are some security and technical challenges to keeping the forwarding addresses active, Harvard has the resources, the contacts and the technical expertise to do so. We ask that Harvard University reconsider this change and figure out a way to keep these forwarding addresses active.

At a bare minimum, Harvard should offer an option to convert these addresses into something like a Google Workspace account at the lowest price possible. This would at least enable alumni to continue their access to the address and determine on their own when it no longer merits the expense. That's still a far cry from the way the forwarding service was marketed to alumni over the years but is much better than the prospect of being locked out of accounts and disconnected from old friends and colleagues.