Password Expiration Approaching for Faculty and Staff

Last spring, Lewis & Clark College implemented a new password change policy for all faculty and staff.  The new policy states that passwords must be aged, and therefore will expire, after 180 days.

You will receive an email notice that begins with a date of when you last changed your password and when it will will expire.

NOTE:  You may notice that the date of the last password change is 5/2/2011, which actually reflects the date the new password policy was applied to your account.

Many systems at L&C use the same login and password, including email, Active Directory (access to your computer and LCFiles), WebAdvisor, Moodle, LiveWhale, LC Infonet, LC Wireless, VPN, WebDisk and access to library databases. 

When selecting a new password, there are some guidelines and hints to consider:

• Your password must be 8 characters long and include at least two alphabetical characters and one numerical or special character.
• To help in remembering your password so that you don’t write it down, use an expression or phrase, or the first line of a song lyric.  For example, OscUs?btd is based on the first eight words of the US National Anthem, with the upper case U substituting for the word “You”.
• To make it more secure, and to include special characters, add punctuation and substitute numbers or special characters for letters: 05cU5?bt
• Ensure that you can type it quickly to avoid others shoulder surfing and guessing your password.
• Do not use names of your pets or family members.

A password history is stored of your last three passwords, making it so that you can’t just switch back and forth between two passwords.  If the incorrect password is entered eight times, you will be locked out for five minutes.  This reduces the chance of a program running a script on a login until it finds the correct password. 

To change your password, go to the Information Technology home page located at go.lclark.edu/it.  Once there, click on the Frequently Used Links button and choose Change Password.  Also, remember never to share your password with anyone and only enter your L&C password on pages that have .lclark.edu in the URL.