Changing e-mail hosts would decrease annual costs and increase e-mail storage space, she said during the presentation.
BlitzMail currently costs the College more than $200,000 per year, Waite-Franzen said, which includes expenses associated with servers, storage space and personnel necessary to maintain the system.
Any new e-mail host would provide e-mail service free of charge, Waite-Franzen said, in the hope that students will keep their accounts after graduation. While the host would not display advertisements to students while they are enrolled at the College, it would target students for advertising post-graduation, allowing the company to make a profit, she said.
Having to adjust to a new e-mail client would be the major disadvantage of replacing BlitzMail, Waite-Franzen said.
"Change isn't something that we all welcome," she said.
Waite-Franzen also questioned the ease with which saved mail could be transferred to a new server.
Many other colleges and universities are also exploring changes to their e-mail systems in order to reduce expenditures, Waite-Franzen said, including Duke University, Brown University, Princeton University and Yale University.
At the Assembly meeting, Waite-Franzen also presented the results of a survey that examined the various other e-mail clients students use, as well as the most important features of BlitzMail that students wish to preserve. The survey, which garnered 1,200 responses, was distributed to the campus by Student Assembly.
Of the survey's respondents, 74.3 percent had previously used Gmail, the most popular non-College provider.
Students listed spell check and threaded conversations as the two e-mail features most important to them, according to the survey results. BlitzMail lacks both of these features. Top BlitzMail features that participants said they did not want to lose in the switch included the Dartmouth Name Directory and the ability to create nicknames for e-mail addresses.
"DND helps provide a sense of community at Dartmouth," Student Body President Molly Bode '09 said.
The DND must be maintained, Waite-Franzen said, because it is used to authenticate and authorize other programs, including Blackboard and BannerStudent.
Some participants who supported the switch complained that BlitzMail does not have any features that are superior to those of other e-mail hosts.
Another student, however, noted the importance of having an e-mail system developed and operated by members of the Dartmouth community.
"I personally think that's not something we should give up unless absolutely necessary," Brian Mengwasser '09 said.
At the meeting, Assembly members also discussed the recent student survey about the College's Good Samaritan policy. Three Assembly members presented the survey results to Hanover's Community Substance Abuse Advisory Council at Hanover High School on Monday.
Due to delays in collecting survey data and the timing of CSAC's meeting, the survey results were not discussed at the General Assembly before they were presented to CSAC, a move some Assembly members criticized.
