Introduction
To comply with Massachusetts law, the College requires all employees to change their Amherst password at least every year. You will be notified via email when your password is due to expire. The email will be signed by an Information Technology staff member and will contain no links but rather instructions on how to change your password.
Any email that is unsigned with a specific person's name, that it is not from a person you can verify is an Amherst employee, that asks you to email or enter into a form user name or password information, or that contains a link to click to update or change password is fraudulent and should be deleted. See our information about email fraud and the practice of "phishing" to steal password information.
There are commonly used "easy" passwords that hackers and malware try first when they attempt to compromise accounts. Some of these common passwords include 11111111, abcdefgh, 12345678, qwertyuiop, 1a1a1a1a, password, and password1. A number of the most commonly used passwords will not be allowed by our system and you will be prompted to select another password if you try to use one of these.
We recommend strongly that you change your password while on campus. Changing your password takes a couple of minutes; what may take time is updating your password in all the places you've saved it. Be sure that you log off of all other computers or mobile devices that you use--including those off-campus--before changing your password. If not the other devices will try to authenticate and fail and you will get locked out.
Instructions
Expired Password
If you fail to change your password and it expires, you can still use your old password to set a new one on the password-changing page.
Go to the Change/Manage Password page to begin the password-changing process.
Your new password must adhere to the password rules.
Note: A link to the password rules is available in the password-changing system so that you can refer to them when changing your password.
After you change your password on the website, you will be sent automatically to the After Changing Your Password page. You’ll find information there about other applications and mobile devices (such as smart phones) that you may need to update with your new password.
If you have any questions or problems after you change your password, call the Help Desk at 413 542-2526.
Expired Password
If you fail to change your password and it expires, you can still use your old password to set a new one on the Change/Manage Password page.