Blurring%20the%20Boundaries:

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Blurring the Boundaries

• Should you friend your students?

Presented By Betsy Clark and portions with Bob
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SurveyWhy are you here?

• are wondering if you should be on FB?
• are on FB and wonder if you should friend your
  students?
• dont want to ever have FB and want to justify
  why you shouldn'ti.e. what could happen?
• Other reasons?

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Presentation Outline

• Benefits of Faculty/Staff on Facebook
• Negatives/Consequences of Facebook
• Facebook in the News Faculty/Staff
• Questions and Discussion

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Why Facebook? (and why is it important for
Student Affairs Professionals to understand)?

• of Students
• Time Spent on FB
• Long term/lifelong effects
• Educating Students
• Student conduct Issues
• Good stuff Facebook can do

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Statistics
Site Online Since 1 Rank from ALL websites1 Rank in Social Networking Sites2 Users 1 Hits1
Facebook 02/2004 4 1 200 Million 1.2 Billion Monthly
MySpace 08/2003 10 2 100 Million 810 Million Monthly
Twitter 03/2006 49 3 5-7 Million 54 Million Monthly
Youtube 02/2005 3 N/A N/A N/A
1Retrieved from Alexa.com on May 15,
2009 2Retrieved from Compete.com on May 15, 2009
based on Stats from Jan 2009.
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Cal U of PA Stats
Currently almost 9,000 members in the Cal U
network
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Benefits
The positive result of populations representing
themselves on Facebook

• Staff and Faculty

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Benefits Staff/Faculty

• Marketing to Prospective Students and Recruiting
  Applicants
• Retaining Students
• Attracting Alumni (and their donations)
• Groups for classes, class course information,
  getting to know students
• Promote events
• Promote department
• Students appreciate that you are also human
  beings more willing to contact you and take
  advice
• More likely to friend and advisor/professor/other
  staff than to contact the institution
•  
•  
•  

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Negatives and/or Consequences of FB

• Staff and Faculty

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Negatives Students pages

• Real vs. Virtual (poking?)
• Students feel like what they post is private,
  when it is actually a public forum.
• Amount of friends (who are your friends
  friends)
• Photos (easily navigate through others photos)
• Facebook Addictions time, stalking
• Internet Caching (long-term/lifelong
  consequences)
• Affiliation with certain people or groups
• Crimes, incidents and student conduct issues

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Mitrano, Tracy (2008). Facebook 2.0. EDUCAUSE
Review, 43 (2).

• Tracy Director of Information Technology Policy
  and Computer Policy and Law Programs at Cornell
  University
• no privacy on the internet, the youth have no
  interest in privacy
• recreation of cultural norms
• challenge - (2) need to connect with the Higher
  Educations mission (not far away that we will
  connect to FB for course enrollment, grades,
  admission applications, other online student
  services) . Use it now for advertising,
  communications, certainly for emergency messaging
• it is what students use
• cant ignore or demonize the technology

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Mitrano, Tracy (April 2006). Thoughts on
Facebook. Retrieved October 22, 2009 from
http//www.cit.cornell.edu/socialnetworking/facebo
ok.cfm

• Invincibility
• Caching
• First Amendment with Freedom Comes
  Responsibility
• No expectation of Privacy would you post on
  your front door what you would post on FB?
• Defamation, Threats, Invasion of Privacy, Other
  crimes from posted photos

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Suggestions.

• Remember students create the cultural norms
• Dont friend students? (dont seek them out)
• Use privacy settings!
• Nothing is really private
• Page should be totally professional
• Make a dept webpage and not a faculty/staff
  individual page

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Ethical Dilemma What do you do when you see
inappropriate things on your students pages?
Where is the line?
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 Aleman, A. Wartman, K. (2008). Online Social
Networking on Campus Understanding what matters
in student culture.

• Students have mixed feelings about University
  Personnel being on FB and feel its for students.
• Faculty should NOT friend students.
• Facebook ethics for Faculty on Facebook site?
• Student affairs professionals can use it to
  foster student development
• Serve as a kiosk for information and questions

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Tales of Embarrassing Exposure
By Dan Tynan, PC World
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7 Where there's smoke
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8 No nudes is good nudes
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9 Nice, err, pom poms
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10 Then we ordered another bottle of tequila,
and when I woke up one of my kidneys was missing
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5 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
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My personal experience(s)
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Educating Students

• Role-modeling
• Freshmen Seminar Course
• Orientation
• First Floor Meetings
• Student Conduct Meetings

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ConclusionSo whats the Answer? Should you
friend your students?