What is a BGSU Account?
All active members of the BGSU community are provided with a BGSU Account. The account allows access to the MyBGSU Portal, BGSU Email, Canvas, OneDrive file storage, and many other services. It serves as the primary account for everyone at BGSU.
BGSU Account Status Timeline
All ACTIVE BGSU faculty, staff and students are provided a BGSU email account. However, in accordance with BGSU's license agreement with Microsoft, as ones affiliation with the university changes, account access does the same. Use the BGSU Account Status Timeline below for information on how BGSU email access may alter based on various status changing scenarios.
AFFILIATION | GRADUATED/RETIRED | LEFT WITHOUT GRADUATING/RETIRING OR ADJUNCT |
Teaching Graduate Assistant | Access removed after 365 days* |
Access terminated when NOT enrolled in a program |
All Other Students |
Continuous email-only access for account in active status** | Access terminated when NOT enrolled in a program |
Staff (Administrative & Classified) | Continuous email-only access for account in active status** | Account disabled on departure date |
Faculty | Continuous email-only access for account in active status** | Account (Office Apps/SharePoint/OneDrive) remains open for 365 days (including adjunct faculty) |
Duo Two Factor Authentication protection for email is required to utilize and maintain a BGSU email account.
*Contact Information Technology Services (ITS) if you would like to have your alumni account reactivated and set to active status in the event you have graduated and find that it is no longer accessible. If the alumni is a former faculty/staff, activation will be dependent on the former supervisor’s approval. If requested by the former supervisor, reactivation may not occur until after the period of proxy access is complete and reactivated accounts may be reset with no previous contacts or email content using the same email address. [Effective October 1, 2022]
**Due to the terms of our license agreement with Microsoft, continuous email-only access is available only to students who graduated in or after 2012 who keep their email account in an "active" status (accounts remain in active status for 364 days after last account activity, including but not limited to account/mailbox login and sending/reading emails ) with Duo Two Factor Authentication protection enabled. [Effective January 1, 2022]
Upon being accepted to Bowling Green State University, students will receive instructions on how to create their BGSU account.
Students who graduate from BGSU will lose access to Office 365 applications approximately 30 days after graduation. They WILL keep their email access indefinitely as long as their account remains in an active status.
Staff: receive their BGSU account shortly after HR is notified by the department of their accepted offer.
Faculty: receive their BGSU account shortly after their college either requests a guest ID or sends information to HR.
Continuous email only access is access to only email. This access does not include Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) or SharePoint (OneDrive and Sites). Our software use license agreement with Microsoft allows for email-only accounts for BGSU alumni.
To keep continuous access to your BGSU email, your account must remain in an "active" status (accounts remain in active status for 364 days after last login) with Duo Two Factor Authentication protection enabled..
For information on changes to other accounts, please contact ITS.
If you have multiple statuses, your account changes will reflect the most current status. For example: You graduated from BGSU and then were hired on as a staff member. Because you became a staff member after you were a student, your current status is Staff and account changes will reflect those of staff. If you did graduate from BGSU, but another status is set to disable your account, please contact ITS to inquire about having your account re-activated*.
*If your account has been terminated based on your status, reenabling is only available for up to 12 months, if not, your account is deleted.
If you are a Graduate Assistant that has taught a class at BGSU, you are considered a faculty.
A student can be terminated from their program based on any of the following scenarios:
- Four semesters have passed since the last course was completed.
- A student is put on academic probation for poor grades, hits the end of the probation period and has not brought their GPA up to a 2.0.
- The student is expelled or has committed a serious breach of University protocol.
Certain students are never enrolled in a program at BGSU - those include guest students and College Credit Plus (CCP) students
Less than 5% of the BGSU alumni use their email accounts after graduation.
Automatic replies set for those leaving the university will be active for as long as the supervisor determines necessary; the user will no longer have access to the account.
Account Security
BGSU uses both your BGSU password and Duo Two Factor Authentication to protect your account. The purpose of using two methods of identification is to better protect your data and works under the premise that an unauthorized user is unlikely to be able to supply both required methods of identification.
Device Setup
We encourage you to setup your personal device using your BGSU account to connect to the wireless network, access email, get updates from Canvas, and use Microsoft Office for free.
Updated: 09/12/2024 01:37PM