Since the rise of social media, many individuals find themselves struggling to successfully divide their time between day-to-day reality and virtual existence on social media profiles.
For those in the professional job market, including instructors, an appropriate balance between the two is sometimes imperative for remaining employment mentality.
Jennifer Greer, chair of the department of journalism, studies social media as part of her research focus, and found Twitter to be a better tool for promotion, while Facebook tends to be more personal.
“My rule is that I don’t post anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t say in the classroom,” Greer said. “I tend to shy away from making any sort of statement about any personal beliefs. It is kind of a mix of personal and professional. I don’t talk about politics for the most part, or religion or anything that might be controversial that I’m not going to say in a classroom.”
For Greer, Facebook has been a way to maintain the image she projects to students. For instance, most of her posts are family photos and shared news articles. She also advertises that she is a fan of the NBA, in addition to her music tastes.
“I kind of like that the students know I’m a mom,” Greer said. “I mean, I’m not shouting about my kids 24/7, but I do talk about them and my husband and that I went to the Taylor Swift concert or whatever, and I’ll bring that up in class. That’s kind of the same stuff I that I post on Facebook.
“The political stuff I will post as it’s related to stuff we’re learning about [in class]. So, say if there was information on the media being critical of Obama and somebody is talking about media coverage, I might post that, not to be critical of Obama but to raise issues that are going on with media coverage.”
Cathy Andreen, director of media relations, said the fate of a professor with inappropriate posts is left up to their department supervisor.
Brooke Champagne, assistant director of composition in the English department, said her supervisor is more lenient. She admitted to swearing occasionally in Facebook posts, which is why she said she never accepts friend requests from students in her classes.
“I am friends with colleagues and supervisors,” Champagne said. “I am not uncomfortable with the language used there. I don’t think the language is any different than the language I use in real life. There is sometimes what I consider minor profanity – that’s a relative term – that’s my ethos in real life.”
Champagne added that her online presence does not necessarily represent how she acts in the classroom with students.
“It’s not the way I would speak to a freshman composition class because freshman classes are really young, so even the word ‘damn’ makes them go ‘ohh, did she just say…?’ I do test that out in classes, so sometimes I may say ‘damn’ and you see a reaction,” Champagne said. “That is why I don’t friend students while they are in my classes.”
Last summer, Champagne assigned a paper about Facebook to her composition class after observing students’ reliance on and infatuation with their phones and social media.
“They were always on their phones, and students were using them all the time, and I thought, ‘they’re always connected to some other life outside of the actual present life that we’re living,’” Champagne said. “They don’t even allow themselves to be bored, and I thought, ‘this is why kids are having to take so much medicine.’”
After engaging in a “healthy” debate with a former student online, Champagne said she tries to remain objective.
“If something’s really making me really, really angry I’ve learned to not post,” Champagne said. “I’ve had to walk away from the gun debate. There’s no reason to get high blood pressure because of Facebook posts.”
Leading in today’s Crimson White:
[Opinion] Students should shake up college routine, go abroad to expand their horizons
[Guest Column] Bonner’s behavior similar to Rowling’s Dolores Umbridge
