Hidden Channels: How Personal Email Use in Academia Undermines Oversight and Safety
Link back to the timeline at genderwatchdog.org
In examining higher education institutions with reported sexual misconduct issues, a concerning pattern often emerges around communication channels. While many professors use official institutional email addresses for student communications, a significant number opt for personal email accounts (Gmail, Naver, etc.) instead of or alongside university-provided addresses.
The Institutional Risk Framework
Research on sexual misconduct in academic settings consistently identifies several institutional risk factors:
- Insufficient transparency in faculty-student communications
- Power imbalances in mentorship relationships
- Lack of clear reporting mechanisms
- Limited oversight of one-on-one interactions
The use of personal email addresses by faculty members—particularly those in positions of power—directly impacts the first and fourth factors by creating communication channels that exist outside institutional oversight.
Why This Matters for Student Safety
When professors in power positions use personal email addresses for professional contacts, it often enables:
- Circumvention of institutional oversight - Communications don't pass through university servers where they might be monitored or archived
- Creation of plausible deniability - "I never received that email" or "That's not what was discussed" becomes harder to verify
- Avoidance of records that could be subject to administrative review - Many universities can access official emails during investigations but have no authority over personal accounts
- Maintenance of "back channels" for communications - Creating separate streams for communications that faculty don't want logged in official systems
This practice becomes particularly troubling in contexts where sexual misconduct concerns exist because:
- It creates private communication channels with students outside institutional monitoring
- It helps separate "official" interactions from "unofficial" ones
- It makes it harder for victims to prove the nature/content of communications
- It eliminates evidence that might otherwise be accessible in investigations
The Dual-Face Phenomenon: Different Emails for Different Audiences
Recent investigations into a specific Korean university's Graduate School of Digital Media and Contents have uncovered a deeply concerning pattern that exists across multiple departments: deliberately presenting different contact information to different audiences.
Specifically:
- English-language websites list official institutional emails (e.g., professor@university.edu)
- Korean-language websites list personal email addresses (e.g., professor@gmail.com, professor@naver.com)
Even more troubling, the institutional email addresses shown on English websites frequently don't even function, bouncing back with "account disabled" or "mailbox unavailable" errors.
Example from the Multimedia Department:
- Professor Jean-Hun Chung (정진헌):
- English website: jhchung@dongguk.edu (non-functional)
- Korean website: evengates@gmail.com
Example from the Film and Digital Media Department:
- Professor Won-Duc Lee (이원덕):
- English website: soundwon@dongguk.edu (non-functional)
- Korean website: soundone@naver.com
This creates a troubling two-tier information system:
- A professional-appearing facade for international partners, accreditation bodies, and foreign students
- An off-the-record reality for domestic communications
When these discrepancies are identified across multiple departments within the same institution, it suggests a systematic institutional practice rather than individual preference. This raises serious questions about transparency, oversight, and whether institutions are deliberately creating separate communication channels for different audiences.
The Gender Dimension
Interestingly, when reviewing faculty directories at institutions with reported misconduct issues, a pattern sometimes emerges where:
- Male professors in tenured/secure positions use personal emails
- Female professors (often in adjunct/visiting roles) also use personal emails
While superficially similar, these practices often serve fundamentally different purposes. For powerful male faculty, personal email usage can function as preservation of power and avoidance of oversight. For precarious female faculty, it may represent survival within a hostile system where institutional email might not even be provided due to their adjunct status.
Red Flags for Prospective Students
When evaluating an academic program, particularly in fields with close mentorship models like arts, film, and creative disciplines, students should consider:
- Does the institution have clear communication policies for faculty-student interactions?
- Are professors using official institutional channels for communication?
- Does the program have transparent mechanisms for reporting concerns?
- Is there institutional oversight of one-on-one mentorship situations?
- Do the institution's English and native-language websites present consistent information?
- Are institutional email addresses functional and actively used?
Not Evidence, But Context
It's crucial to note that personal email use alone is not evidence of misconduct. There may be legitimate reasons why faculty use personal accounts, including:
- Poor institutional email systems
- Pre-existing professional relationships
- Multiple institutional affiliations
- Departmental culture and practices
However, when examining institutions with documented issues, communication patterns often provide important context for understanding how problematic behaviors remained hidden for extended periods.
For students concerned about these issues, examining an institution's faculty directory and communication practices can provide valuable insights into the overall health of organizational oversight and accountability structures.
This post examines institutional patterns and does not make accusations against any specific individuals or institutions. The observations are based on research into structural factors that contribute to environments where misconduct can more easily remain undetected.