You guys realize that the ADs of colleges and universities get probably close to one hundred emails, maybe more, a day? And not just from fans? You can't blame them for not taking the time to read every single email they get from the fans.
I disagree.
If not her personally,someone in her office should be reading every email sent to her and sending out at least an "acknowledgement".
"Relevant" emails could then be given to her to read and responded to.
I agree. As someone who spent almost all of their career in external affairs, not acknowledging an outside contact early on was recognized as the quickest route for an issue, or even a simple inquiry, ballooning into something much more. It was always a given that an early acknowledgment of such a contact was step one, even if a resolution or intermediate response was not on the immediate horizon. If the situation called for it, it was also important to try to manage expectations by offering, if at all possible, some further idea of when a follow-up contact with them about the matter might be made.
Nothing too profound here really as I’m sure many of you have used and/or experienced similar practices.
However, having mentioned all of this, I think it’s still a little early to be too critical. The athletic director did, after all as I recall, initiate the communications about receiving input. I’d expect that she is still trying to get everything fine tuned. Who knows, maybe she and her staff have some particularly pressing issue(s); perhaps even some things that came up after her outreach. Of course, I can offer this opinion since I have not been trying to reach out to them. ;)
If the inquiries are indeed that numerous, I would expect that at some point in the future they might prepare general templates in order to be able to respond, either by email or letter, more quickly to the common questions that they receive. A “fill in the blanks, tweaking the content, cut and paste kind of thing”. Granted that may not be the most personal method of contact or “special treatment” but it can be both expeditious and provide a consistent message. It would also enable them to squeeze out more time to respond to those inquiries that require more work, including more direct, personal contact, as needed.