Administrators know who sent the “Vote Red” e-mail on Tuesday and have an idea of how the campus e-mail addresses were obtained.
Vice President for Student Affairs Alan Galsky said a student sent the initial message out, but did not say who that student was.
“We believe the student got the e-mail addresses from a message they received,” he said.
Galsky said the university has “dealt with the issue through the proper responses.”
The Information Resources and Technology department is working to ensure a similar situation doesn’t occur in the future.
Associate Provost for Information Resources and Technology Chuck Ruch said technology has been changed so students can no longer access complete lists of e-mail addresses for each major, which is how the e-mails were sent.
Although the original e-mail appeared to be on behalf of students Jordan Ticaric and Jade Peters, who were participating in a runoff for election for student body president and vice president, both candidates said they do not know who sent the e-mail.
The original e-mail, sent at 12:02 a.m. Tuesday, garnered 164 responses – all of which were sent to nearly every student. And while some responses discussed the election, others talked about things such as what students thought Bradley’s mascot should be, or when students were going to meet each other for dinner.
Senior psychology major Doug Bahnick responded to the e-mail many times, and said he thought students enjoyed the e-mail forum because it was a unique experience to communicate with the whole student body.
“I think it comes down to the fact that there’s an inherent appeal to have a voice heard from such a large audience,” he said. “It’s the first time I’m aware of in Bradley history there’s been a pathway for communication as large as this, and I think it shows that students want this method of communication.
“I personally don’t have an opinion when it comes to politics, in fact I thought the whole process was rather hysterical,” he said.
In his e-mail response, senior journalism major Andy Perez expressed frustration toward the red ticket for promoting its cause through such public forum.
“Of course, now I realize that it wasn’t from them,” he said. “I responded to the e-mail because I was extremely aggravated, because I have a Blackberry and it went off every time, so as hypocritical as it was, I just sent out an e-mail in the middle of the night.”
