A) Send a circular email informing people that they need to change their login in order to be able to check email
B) Wait until sufficient chaos ensues that angry students storm your office demanding to know why they can't check their email, access their files, or even access desktops on most computers in the department (because obviously it's really important for security reasons that no-one should be able to use computers at all when the network server is down). Then tell the angry students to "spread the word" about the changed login
C) Refuse to tell departmental sysadmins what's going on, because after all they're not directly employed by the university, so obviously they're the scum of the earth
D) Actually take some sensible steps to inform people what's going on. Like, maybe, print out a notice and display it in a prominent place
Guess which our lovely department chose? Oh yes, got it in one: a mixture of A, B and C. Grrr!