Upcoming changes to Google Workspace

Clemson University is proud to offer industry-leading collaboration and workspace tools for Clemson employees and students, including Google Workspace. Recently, Google announced policy and pricing changes that will impact Clemson’s ability to support some parts of Google Workspace, including storage and email. CCIT has worked with stakeholders and leadership across the University to create a plan that will meet both Clemson’s financial and technological goals while minimizing impact to the Clemson community.

Email

Students

Students are increasingly being targeted with phishing and scam emails. Google Mail lacks the security tools used by Clemson to negate these attacks. Starting in 2024, incoming students will use @clemson.edu email addresses with Microsoft Exchange. Over the coming years, Google Mail (@g.clemson.edu) addresses will be phased out for students.

Faculty and Staff

Eventually, all faculty and staff using @g.clemson.edu email addresses will be migrated to @clemson.edu addresses with Microsoft Exchange. Employees should consider setting up their Exchange email accounts when convenient prior to the migration deadline, to be announced at a later date.

Once these changes are made, faculty, staff and current students will still have access to other Google services, such as Google Drive. At this time, Clemson is only transitioning away from Google Mail for these groups.

Recent Graduates

Per Clemson’s Email Policy introduced in Spring 2023, graduates will have access to their Clemson email for one year following graduation. This new policy applies to students graduating in May 2023 and beyond.

Alumni and Former Employees

Beginning in early 2024, Alumni and former Clemson employees will no longer have access to Clemson email. Alumni and former employees who use their Clemson email should update their contacts with a different, non-Clemson email address (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) prior to 2024. The impact of this change is expected to be minimal, as only a small percentage of these users actively use their Clemson email addresses. Clemson will contact these active users individually to ensure they are aware of the coming changes and ensure a smooth transition. Note that this change does not affect Emeritus Faculty.

Storage

Due to the elimination of free, unlimited storage by Google on July 1, 2024, Clemson will have limited storage available for use University-wide. As it currently stands, Clemson users’ storage total far exceeds our Google storage allotment. To meet this allocation limit, Clemson must implement a per-person storage quota for active students, faculty and staff, to be announced at a later date.

Alumni and Former Employees

A significant portion of the University’s current storage is used by alumni and former employees. Starting in early 2024, Clemson alumni and former employees will no longer have access to Google Workspace, including Google Drive. This should give users sufficient time to download all of their files and store them in a new location, such as a portable hard drive or a cloud-based storage provider (e.g. Box.com). Google Takeout service allows users to download their files from Google Workspace. Note that this change does not affect Emeritus Faculty.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are these changes happening?
Changes by Google to their license and storage model eliminated free, unlimited storage for all educational accounts. Due to these added costs, we must reduce our reliance on Google for services like email and storage since we already have other solutions in place.

Who is impacted by these changes?
The good news is that most active students, faculty and staff will have little to no impact from this project, and users should still be able to complete their day-to-day tasks. The largest change affects Clemson alumni. Starting in early 2024, alumni will no longer have access to Google Workspace, including Mail and Drive.

What if I need to store a large amount of data for my research?
If researchers believe they need more storage than the allotted amount on Google Workspace for their data (to be determined at a future date), they should request a Palmetto HPC account. All Clemson researchers can use and receive training on the Palmetto Cluster for free.