If you think your teacher has forgotten all about the e-mail you sent yesterday, try not to panic, for your professor might not have received it at all.

“The e-mail server Zimmer crashed from what appears to be corrupted data,â€Â Eric McLain, associate director of Information Technology Services, said. “As a result, about half of all users weren’t able to access their e-mail.â€Â

These users consisted mainly of faculty and staff, as students and cvip.net users access their e-mail from a different server.

Wednesday evening, Information Technology Services sent out an e-mail to the faculty and staff informing them that their e-mail would be down until Thursday at 6 p.m.

“I almost had a heart attack,â€Â test coordinator Linda Ensche said. “My e-mail is like my life line.â€Â

Ensche receives tests by e-mail from all over the world, and when the server crashed, it made her realize how dependent she is on her e-mail to perform her job.

“If it was down for a week, my staff and I would be in serious trouble,â€Â she said.

Information Technology Services ran system checks on Zimmer and repaired the damaged data, McLain said, and brought the system back online by Thursday afternoon. All cued e-mail was then delivered.

“We don’t believe that any messages were lost,â€Â he said.

Ensche eventually received all 1,700 of her missing e-mails.

“It’s just an eye-opener,â€Â she said, “but maybe it was a good thing, like a wake-up call.â€Â

She vows to invest in a back-up e-mail in case this should ever happen again.

“It just goes to show that we’re slaves to our e-mails and computers,â€Â she said.