aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Faculty, friending and Facebook

I’m not faculty so my relationship to students is slightly different; but only slightly. From The Chronicle:

The old guy in the corner at a college party can come off as creepy. The same goes for a faculty member on Facebook, the online hangout first populated by students.

“Facebook was created as a place for students, not for professors,” says Steve Moskowitz, a sophomore at the State University of New York College at Oneonta. Students should be able to express themselves freely there, he says, without worrying what some professor will think.

One way to do that is by joining groups. Their names, often clever, mark identities like bumper stickers. Mr. Moskowitz formed the group “Gee, I don’t think I want my professors on Facebook anymore.” Its icon is a lecturer crossed out with a big red X.

But like it or not, professors are logging on. The number of Facebook users is doubling every six months, and adults, including professors, are the fastest-growing group among them. Some want to track down students who no longer respond to e-mail. Many are curious to see for themselves the addictive gabfest. As they sign on, they are negotiating the famously fraught teacher-student relationship in new ways.

This has been my practice:

Most faculty members on Facebook keep their profiles professional - nothing racier than would be posted, say, on an office door. The consensus on friending seems to be: Accept students’ requests but don’t initiate any.

That’s one of the guidelines for “Faculty Ethics on Facebook,” a group started by Mark A. Clague, an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “Since there’s an uneven power dynamic, giving the power to the students to control the relationship” is good policy, he says.

And this:

For all its pitfalls, Facebook can prompt meaningful exchanges. Some professors look up students who e-mail them with questions or are scheduled to come to office hours. What the professors learn, they say, makes them better advisers. Comments that students have posted - concern over a bad class presentation, for example - can provoke a thoughtful conversation. One professor knew to go easy on a student when he saw his status change from “in a relationship” to “single.”

The company lost me when it opened up to anyone. Questions about Zuckerberg and his recent exploits turn me off further. You have to wonder how long the Facebook fad will last.