Purpose
Email communication is a dominating tool of communication in higher education. Despite its prevalence, the expectations of email communication involving faculty and students varies between the two communicating parties. We sought to investigate the email preferences of both students and faculty.

Methods
The study was conducted using one-time questionnaires that were distributed to students and faculty using institutional email. Surveys required participants to be logged into their institutional accounts to ensure that they were only taken once. Results were analyzed using GraphPad. IRB#2024-379

Results
30 faculty members (n=57) and 41 (n=162) students participated in the study. Faculty reported they are likely or very likely to read the entirety of an email, 87%, compared to students (59%). Faculty and staff similarly deemed emoticon reactions to emails to be unprofessional (30% vs 37%) though 71% of students saw emoticon responses as sufficient compared to only 40% of faculty. Each group reported checking their email accounts multiple times a day with 80% of faculty and 34% of students checking 10+ times. 76% of students preferred to have course information provided via email while 66% of faculty reported that they preferred disseminating course information through Canvas.

Conclusion
Our findings show distinct but amenable virtual communication preferences between students and faculty. These results emphasize a need for student and faculty development sessions to highlight generational perceptions of best practices for communication in the academic workplace. Understanding these idiosyncrasies can help foster better workplace habits to both improve student outreach as well as prepare students to effectively communicate in the workplace. Future investigations include determining the ideal email structure for disseminating information and the creation of student and faculty development sessions.