I go to a small school that still grants all-campus email access to everyone. It develops a culture of communication all its own, and often hosts vigorous and even nasty arguments. And while the role it plays could be filled much better by other technologies, email is a common enough technology that everyone can take part.
I went to a similar school: one of my fondest memories from college is the raw, unfiltered discussion that took place on those mailing lists. And due to the mail client's ability to thread discussions I could ignore topics that were of no interest as well.
