My former student Hilary is now at UCLA, and she alerts me to this article in today’s Daily Bruin: Instructors use tech to reach students. It’s about professors who give out their cell phone numbers or use Facebook to stay in touch with students.
My students generally don’t have my cell phone number, though most of the kids from my old youth group program still do. I have something like 470 contacts on Facebook, of which perhaps 125-150 are current or former students. I don’t list Facebook on my syllabus as one of the primary ways to contact me; I urge students to use email and office hours. At the same time, I’m happy to let those students who do prefer Facebook to contact me that way. I don’t like to answer lengthy questions using that format, but am happy to respond to shorter ones on the site.
The Bruin article notes that about 250 of UCLA’s full and part-time faculty have Facebook profiles; that’s about 5% of the nearly 5000 instructors who teach in some capacity at the school. Here at PCC, I’m one — by my lights — of only about a dozen professors who maintain a presence on Facebook. I know at least two other faculty members in my department who use Facebook to maintain contact with students, and there may be more, but it surely is not the norm.
I have friends from all aspects of my life on Facebook, as well as my students. Some of my former youth group kids, who are still very much underage, are also my contacts. What I put up on my site is tailored, at least to some extent, to that reality. I also have at least two dozen friends who are older than I am; my senior-most contact on Facebook was born in the Truman Administration. Unlike Myspace, there is a “cleanness” to the Facebook look that I find refreshing, useful, and safe.
In the end, I’m excited about the potential for mentoring that Facebook presents. As the Bruin article notes:
Regardless of whether students and professors use new technologies to communicate, developing a close student-professor relationship can be especially important at a large university.
Physiological sciences Professor Christian Roberts, who uses Facebook and instant messaging, encouraged students to get to know their professors.
“It really helps the learning environment, and it builds camaraderie around the campus community,” he said.
Getting to know professors can create connections that might help later on, Roberts added.
“I wouldn’t be in the position I am today if it wasn’t for my communication with one of my old professors,” he said.
Indeed.
I am friends with several of my teachers (inclding one from high school) on Facebook and Myspace. I am warming up to Facebook after preferring Myspace for a while. I like that you can get to know your teachers better while still having some good boundaries. Of course, as I told you before, that’s the thing I liked best about you — your boundaries are really good. (And you’ve got me writing in parentheses all the time with those hyphens!)
Your status updates on Facebook are hysterically funny, by the way.
thanks, Leslee, for the note about boundaries. I aspire to that. Glad you like the Facebook updates.
i’m actually trying to convince one of my teachers to get a facebook, i even used you as a reason-but she’s still worried that people will think she’s kooky. glad to hear perspective from an older facebook user.
by the way, facebook isn’t all that clean. i found a picture of a guy’s pierced…moneybag.