Sara Lipka has a piece in the Chronicle on the growth of faculty on Facebook: For Professors, ‘Friending’ Can Be Fraught.
The piece starts with some students lamenting the presence of professors on the network:
“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.
Two things come to mind here. First, it shows how many don’t understand the internet–as just because one has to have an account to get into the system doesn’t mean that whatever you say there is therefore contained within the world of Facebook (just ask Caroline Giuliani or Julia Corker). Second, I originally signed up on Facebook because several students asked me to do so. I actually find it useful as a communication tool, but hardly “hang out” there. I have also found it useful for re-connecting with some old friends from High School.
At any rate, all of that is simply prologue to the best part of the Chronicle piece, which features an experience from Troy’s own Scott Nokes:
Richard Scott Nokes, a professor of English at Troy University, in Alabama, knows how that goes. A student once approached him late in the week to ask for an extension on an assignment. He said he was going to a relative’s funeral. Mr. Nokes happened to sign on to Facebook a few days later, and something in his news feed — the site’s voyeuristic compilation of friends’ updates — caught his eye.
There was a new picture of the bereaved student, posted by a friend, on the beach in Panama City, Fla. Mr. Nokes, who had suspected as much, decided not to say anything. “I guess it’s not the first time I’ve been lied to by a student,” he says. But “it was the first time I had a photograph.”
And that, my friends, is a classic tale for the ages.
December 5th, 2024 at 9:09 am
I think that maybe I should wear my glasses a little more often. When I saw the headline for this post on my feed at my homepage I totally misread the word “perils”, lol!
December 5th, 2024 at 1:18 pm
Professors on Facebook
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting piece on the pluses and minuses of professors joining Facebook. It creates some social issues, with some students feeling that their free speech zone has been invaded by the enemy and some profs wo…