Probably because the need of moderation.
If you host an instance and let people in (even if it’s a limited circle, i.E. your students) you are responsible for moderation. I think that’s something institutions back off currently.
For an mail server that’s much easier.
Many Universities already have their own dedicated subreddits that are usually moderated by a mix of faculty, staff, and students. I know of at least one sub moderated in part by the chair oftheh math department, who is as funny as they are savage.
An above-average level of shitposting goes on, sure, but it’s also a great venue for the school’s online community to engage across organizational boundaries.
Because of the network effect and content aggregation. With emails you just want to reach a specific person, with public posts you want to reach as many people as possible. But I also think the whole ownership and control problem of centralized social networks wasn’t as apparent as it is now.
Universities have experimented with more private social networks. I remember YikYak back in my uni days. They either don’t have the resource to spin one up or they don’t know about it.
Same here, and I doubt their IT departments knows deeply about Fediverse. Also some times the department making communication is non technical and not close to IT so people making decisions just choose what they know (Instagram, Twitter, etc). At least that was the case in the University I studied
It’s mostly the latter from what I’ve seen.
At least in my country IT departments have very little wiggle room as organizations have gotten more rigid with increased control from the top echelons. Some universities in my country used to host a lot of cool services for students to use. Nowdays it seems that the legacy stuff is kept online as long as the people maintaining them are around.
